Enough of the pain.
State Farm insureds have been through enough.
Of all the insurance companies, complaints from insureds who lost homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires suggest that Fair Plan and State Farm are the two insurance companies treating insureds most poorly.
The tales of woe are legion. If you aren’t already tapped in, you can see some of the many expressions of misery attributed to State Farm here.
There have been numerous calls on State Farm to improve the manner in which it is handling the claims of those who suffered losses in the Palisades and Eaton fires, but nearly a year after the devastating fires, it appears that little has changed.
This despite an investigation opened by the California Department of Insurance and, more recently, the County of Los Angeles.
It’s time for State Farm to do the right thing and make full payment to its policy holders who lost their homes in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires.
But wait, won’t that mean that some policy holders will be overpaid?
No. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of those insured by State Farm were underinsured – some massively so.
Many would argue that State Farm should be held responsible for that. That it had an obligation to do a better job guiding those insured to get adequate coverage.
At a minimum, State Farm insureds should be paid out the coverage they thought they would have if disaster struck, as it did. Coverage they paid State Farm to have.
Wouldn’t changes in State Farm’s claims handling practices take care of the problem?
No. Not a chance. Changes in claims payment handling, even if made, are not going to get State Farm insureds who suffered devastating losses where they need to be: in a position to recover and move forward with their lives now. Now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not six months or a year from now. Now.
11 months of waiting and uncertainty is enough.
What’s also at stake here? If helping individuals and families get back on their feet isn’t enough, the ability of the communities devastated in the Palisades and Eaton fires to rebuild and get back to the thriving places they once were is also on the line.
In the discussions about the insurance crisis gripping our state, attention is given, appropriately, to the plight of individuals and families. Its also given to legitimate complaints from insurers about the challenges they face in doing business in California. But little attention is given to the very real fact that the insurance signed up for and paid for by individuals serves the entire community. In fact, home insurance signed up for and paid for by individuals is crucial to the well being of entire communities. No other purchase made by individuals has such a direct and resounding effect on the well being of others.
So when any insurance company delays payments to any one of its insureds, or makes life difficult for any of its insureds, it is having a profound and profoundly negative on not just that individual, but on that individual’s neighbors and the entire community the individual lives in – or lived in before calamity.
11 months is enough. Time for State Farm to pay out 100% to policy limits and enable those who suffered and their communities to move forward.