California’s Deputy Insurance Commissioner Michael Soller says thousands of fire survivors in Sonoma County have seen their benefits terminated while they still have no home to return to. In an email, Soller wrote that Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara “appreciates the willingness of 26 companies to honor the spirit of the new law,” adding, “With fires again burning in Sonoma County, insurance companies have an opportunity to stand with their policyholders.
“It’s infuriating. It’s unbelievable, and it’s so ironic,” said Carlin Rosset, who was evacuated again last week because of the Kincade fire burning dangerously close to her nearly rebuilt home. “Like a good neighbor?” she quipped, referring to the State Farm jingle. “More like the worst neighbor you’d never want to know.”Courtesy Suzanne Carlin
"The [insurance companies] give you these sheets of paper and you have to write down every medication you take. Every spice in your cupboard. How many tampons. It’s horrible.” The experience is all too common — particularly among State Farm customers, the company that insured an outsized portion of people who lost their homes in the Tubbs fire and has paid out $1.9 billion for that alone, according to Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California.
Frazier pointed to regulations by the state of California that prevent insurance companies from setting rates that include their actual costs of reinsurance or that take climate change models into account, relying instead on historical data. “It’s not sustainable for them to spend $25 billion and not be able to charge based on their actual costs,” Frazier said, referring to the amount insurers have paid out for wildfire claims for the 2017 and 2018 fires.
Along with many of her Mark West neighbors, Frazee has tried to appeal this decision, asking for an extension of benefits under California’s Insurance Code Section 2051.5 which says that in a state of emergency, policyholders should be given extensions for “good cause.”
CASottile People are finding out that Nationwide is not on your side💆🏽♂️
CASottile Here is a price no one ever associates with climate change, the cost insurance, be it wild fires, tornadoes, flooding or hurricanes. Ever year our homeowner insurance goes to cover others who lost their homes or businesses to climate change, yet Washington says its to expensive!
CASottile Insurance is a scam. They never want to pay you back, even though it's their purpose.
CASottile I'm about to cancel my Allstate for this news.
CASottile Welcome to the life of the Florida Panhandle! It’s been well over a year since Category 5 Hurricane Michael made landfall and insurance companies are still lacking in helping those in need!
CASottile Sounds like State Farm might be screwing people there. Possible?
CASottile Pocahontas is gonna make 2 million people have jobs at car insurance companies
CASottile OMG! I thought NBC was mocking trump but it’s NBC who don’t know who the Syrian president is 🤦🏻♂️
Now I bet they will want Government Aid... even though they don’t/didn’t want anything to do with TRUMP/Washington