Trump Admin Looking into Insurance Companies’
Handling of LA Fire Claims

I will be calling State Farm tomorrow.

I bet its the same companies that screwed people after Katrina. Wind driven water and flooding, remember that?

But State Farm has the friendliest TV ads.

There is more to this story than is being told, including LA not maintaining water levels to fight the fire, the fire dept. leaving the scene with embers still burning, causing the catastrophe that unfolded. Insurance companies have a good case that the LA authorities were instrumental in burning the region down. There will be years of litigation to proportion the liability between the insurance companies and the LA government, meaning the payouts will likely first be sent to arbitration. The blame is not just on the insurance companies. California and the LA local government have plenty to account for themselves.

If you’re looking for a bogeyman in the L.A. fires, leave State Farm out of it. They always get blamed because they’re the biggest. For years, State Farm made one rate increase request after another to the California insurance commissioner. They were turned down. They endured years of underwriting losses. They had their own assessments of the catastrophic fire risks; the insurance commissioner said they couldn’t use them in their calculations. The reinsurance market for California dried up. The year before the fires, State Farm non-renewed 70% of Pacific Palisades. There was mo other choice. They knew that if a fire got started there, it would burn all the way to the ocean, and nothing would stop it - so they gave their policyholders six months to find coverage somewhere else, and pulled out. Less than a year later, that’s exactly what happened. They dodged a 70 billion-dollar catastrophe loss. State Farm acted in the best interests of their millions of policyholders in 49 other states. They are not a philanthropic organization. Any other insurance company with sound management would have done the same thing. If you want to blame somebody - other than the addled vagrant who actually started the fire - blame the politicians in California for 75 years of bad management.

Glad to see other posters with the knowledge to defend the insurance companies. I was an independent agent for over 40 years which means we represented several companies but always felt State Farm agents as good competitors. One of my son's best friends is an SF agent. And "Wind driven water and flooding, remember that"? I sure do". Your homeowner policy does not cover flood water whether "driven by wind or not" and that's almost all the homeowner forms in the country used by every company. This has been the case for decades. For flood, you need flood coverage from the Federal Flood Insurance Corporation. Most companies have been losing their a**** in CA for years, and now they are leaving just like the residents and corporations are now.

State Farm is not the only insurance company that pulled out of California. We were with a different company and live in Northern California, but our insurance was not renewed. The rates of the few remaining companies were insanely high, or the equally insanely high "state-run" FAIR insurance. We're self-insuring now. Our bank only required mortgage insurance at $2,000 a year. We bought a civil liability policy for $700 a year. We opened a separate savings account and each month I deposit the equivalent amount spent on our old policy. We're banking on our personal fire mitigation of clearing brush and mowing dried grass. We also have a sprinkler system that covers the roof of the house, workshop, solar battery shed, and woodshed. You do not have to be dependent on the insurance companies.

I live on the north shore of (the body of water) Bay Saint Louis, MS. We are just a couple miles across the bay from the town of Waveland and (the town of) Bay Saint Louis, MS, which were 'ground zero' for 2005's hurricane Katrina. I have the southernmost house in my neighborhood that was still standing after the storm. Yes, flood insurance is separate from homeowner insurance, BUT...... We have friends whose house roof was torn off by Katrina's winds, and the rain poured down and ruined everything inside. The storm surge at their house covered the floor ONE HALF INCH DEEP, but the ALLSTATE agent declared "It's ALL FLOOD damage, and WE ARE NOT PAYING A PENNY!" Our friends had to not only try to rebuild their home, but they also had to sue ALLSTATE to get some kind of a payment. After Katrina, the two insurance companies with the worst reputation for 'stiffing' their policyholders were Allstate and State Farm. There was a big stink when a couple of ladies who worked for Allstate 'blew the whistle' on Allstate having a company policy -as in a standard procedure- to DENY AND FIGHT EVERY CLAIM. The whole experience many people had with Allstate can be summed up in a photo of a flood-ruined refrigerator, duct-taped closed to keep the stink -from the rotten food inside- inside the fridge. Someone had written, with a magic marker, in big letters: "DO NOT OPEN. ALLSTATE AGENT INSIDE".