Sacramento, California – Before A forest fire devastated its street In northwestern Altadena, Louise Hamlin and Chris Wilson lived next to each other in almost identical houses.
“I chose an old house in an old neighborhood because she has a soul,” said Hamlin, a 51 -year -old single mother with a teenager, who bought her 1,500 square feet house 10 years ago.
Today, their lovely English -style cabins built in 1925 with the cozy porches and palladian windows have gone. In the midst of the rubble and the ash, There is little left of its historical neighborhood.
In the weeks since The Eaton forest fire He took their homes, Hamlin and Wilson have stumbled with business layers, bureaucracy and emotional trauma to survive a natural disaster, with a look firmly established in reconstruction.
The way in which reconstruction will navigate is a history of contrasting fortunes and an unequal recovery that reveals the growing housing insurance crisis of the Nation. His insurance has already paid almost a million dollars and is looking for contractors. He is contemplating loans, demands and taking his family from California.
“He changes the entire trajectory to his life,” said Wilson, 44, who bought his house five years ago with his wife, who is six months pregnant with his first child.
Hamlin’s house was covered privately by Mercury Insurance, but Wilson was forced to the California insurance access plan, the state Bare-Bones insurance program, when Secofo declined to renew his policy last May. The just plan assures people that they cannot obtain private coverage but need insurance as a condition of their mortgage.
As forest fires, hurricanes and other natural disasters become more frequent Due to climate change, Many owners are Struggling to find or pay private insurance. The problem is particularly acute in California, where some important insurance companies have He stopped writing new policies or they are refusing to renew the existing ones.
State officials recently began to implement new regulations To attract insurers to stay In California, hoping to get as many owners as possible from the fair plan.
Just, with its high premiums and its basic coverage, it was designed as a temporary safety network until the insured find a more permanent option. However, the number of residential policies of the Just Plan doubled from 2020 to 2024, reaching almost 452,000 policies last year.
For Wilson and Hamlin, their parallel reconstruction trips serve as a warning story. Wilson paid almost 60% more on premiums related to the fire that Hamlin, for less than half of the coverage.
“That is why many people call it ‘the unfair plan’,” said Amy Bach, executive director of the United Surchanders Consumer Defense Group.
The Matrix of Secofo, Liberty Mutual, said in a statement that he could not comment on any individual policy, but acknowledged “difficult commercial decisions but with purpose” in California.
Mercury did not respond to comments requests.
Janet Ruiz, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, which represents many important insurance companies, said California is lucky enough to have the fair plan, which is required to accept everyone. Ruiz said the results would still be worse if the owners did not have coverage.
The insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, said that California is working to ensure that all claims are paid. He said in a statement that his office is working to obtain the owners of the Just Plan and return to the most comprehensive traditional coverage.
A fair of the Just Plan declined to comment on Wilson’s case and pointed out that it is difficult to compare policies and coverage.
Thousands of people He lost his homes In the fires of Eaton and Palisades nearby, which were among the most destructive in the history of California.
The Just Plan said that the staff expanded to meet the growing demand and has a financing mechanism to pay all the claims covered. State data shows that more than 31,000 claims related to forest fires had been presented as of last week, including approximately 4,400 claims under the fair plan.
Hamlin had standard integral home insurance, with an annual policy premium of $ 1,264 at the time of the fire. She can receive up to $ 1.5 million to replace her home, other structures and personal goods, including up to $ 303,000 for life expenses while displaced. Your policy gives you the right to charge that you could add more than $ 200,000 to help you rebuild.
Meanwhile, Wilson pays a $ 2,000 premium for the fair plan that establishes its maximum payment at $ 686,000, including $ 100,000 for life expenses while moving.
Wilson also had to buy “insurance envelope” for $ 1,500 a year for problems that the fair plan does not cover, such as bursts or objects that fall. That supplementary plan does not cover fire damage.
Hamlin said Mercury’s support has been exceptional, immediately sending his money and helping with the next steps, such as finding homes and obtaining contractor contributions. In a matter of days, the company connected its tens of thousands of dollars to start while the process fit.
“Being able to rest at night and wake up and deal with everything else is really important,” said Hamlin.
Meanwhile, Wilson has even fought to talk to a representative of a fair plan. There was zero communication in the first two weeks, the contact information was listed incorrectly, the phone numbers did not have voice email and the emails were recovered.
“Half of the time, I feel that I am doing something wrong,” Wilson said.
After Associated Press communicated to comment, the spokesman for the Department of Insurance, Michael Soller, said a representative would communicate directly with Wilson.
Wilson said he feels tormented by his elections. He thought he had bought properties in a low risk area, and had avoided looking for houses in another neighborhood to the north after hearing that his insurers had dropped people there.
Hamlin was also aware of fire risks when he moved. He previously lived in Pasadena and was surprised that State farm, Your insurance company then would not offer your coverage in Altadena. She chose Mercury because it was the cheapest option, and was considering pursuing even more robust coverage.
“It could have been abandoned when Chris was abandoned. Any of us could be at any time. It’s just luck, really. It’s nothing I did or did not do, “said Hamlin, surprised by the comparison.” He had the same risk factors as all others. “
Stephen Collier, professor of urban planning at the University of California, Berkeley, said that the seemingly random nature of who retires and when it has a lot to do with the complicated risk models of insurance companies.
“Everyone is trying to handle their exhibition,” Collier said. “If you think of forest fires, you don’t want a concentrated exposure.”
Wilson said that Secofo requested an inspection of his property before deciding not to renew his policy. In panic, he tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with them, offering clear brushes, cut trees near the ceiling and other forest fire mitigation efforts.
Wilson aggressively bought with his insurance agent, but was in vain, and the fair plan was renounced, assuming that he would eventually find private insurance again.
There was another capture: Wilson said he could not obtain comprehensive coverage of replacement costs in the fair plan because his roof was too old. On the other hand, it ended with what is known as “real value in cash” coverage, which largely limits payment based on physical depreciation of what was lost.
“We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars and that is very, very painful,” said Bach of the United insured.
Citing the increase in fire risks and other problems, seven of the 12 main insurance companies stopped or restricted new businesses in California in 2023. State regulations Give insurers more freedom to increase premiums in exchange for policy issuance in high -risk areas, including Consideration of climate change in premiums and pass reinsurance costs to consumers.
But those are just short -term solutions, said Dave Jones, California insurance commissioner from 2011 to 2018. He pointed to Florida, where officials “have done everything that insurers asked California to do” but produced little success.
“We are constantly marching towards a future not insurance in the United States because we are not doing quickly enough to address the underlying cause, which is climate change,” Jones said.
Unless governments assume the financial burden of serious mitigation efforts, the California fire risk price will remain unequal and leave the owners, said Collier of UC Berkeley. That could be the aussion, like Wilson, swallowing their personal losses, or all the owners of California charged collectively with the highest premiums, or both. State Farm, the largest insurance company in California, this week urged the State to approve an emergency rate of 22% for housing owners from May after processing almost 8,700 claims and paying more than $ 1 billion to the headlines of policy for the fires of Los Angeles.
“There is a lot of risk in the system and there is a great question of who is going to pay for this,” said Collier.
Wilson hopes you have to receive loans to rebuild. He is considering joining A demand against southern California Edison That claims that the public service company team caused the fire, hoping to receive liquidation money.
But with a baby on the way, Wilson said he cannot understand living in Limbo in the Just Plan forever, and is thinking of leaving California if private insurance is out of reach.
“I don’t want to have to be prepared to lose everything again,” Wilson said. “Trapped paying for insurance that does not cover anything. You don’t want to live in a risky area. You don’t have the security network. “
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ME reported from Seattle. Associated Press Data journalist Aaron Kessler in Washington, DC, contributed.
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