It’s fire season. Here are three ways to prepare financially
It’s fire season. Here are three ways to prepare financially

Good morning. I’m Rachel Schnalzer, the L.A. Times Business section’s audience engagement editor, back with our weekly newsletter. While the financial effects of the coronavirus pandemic are the usual focus of the newsletter, I’m pivoting this week to discuss another crisis facing Californians: the wildfires…
Insurance increasingly unaffordable as climate change brings more disasters
Insurance increasingly unaffordable as climate change brings more disasters

There was a moment in 2016, just after putting an offer on a house in the Oakland Hills in California, that Jamye Alexandra wondered if it was a mistake. Not because of the house itself, or the location, but because the insurance company the previous…
Statewide town hall to address wildfire assistance and insurance resources
Statewide town hall to address wildfire assistance and insurance resources

Join Cal OES Director, Mark Ghilarducci, CA Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and United Policyholders Executive Director, Amy Bach for a Statewide Virtual Town Hall on wildfires assistance and insurance resources available to renters and homeowners. With many communities experiencing evacuations, loss of homes and the…
Insurance Commissioner to Investigate Key Wildfire Insurance Issues Under Legislation Headed to Senate Floor, says Consumer Watchdog
Insurance Commissioner to Investigate Key Wildfire Insurance Issues Under Legislation Headed to Senate Floor, says Consumer Watchdog

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara would investigate and develop solutions to ensure affordable, accessible insurance for homeowners in wildfire areas and report back to the legislature, under amendments to AB 2167 adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday.…
JPML Won’t Centralize All COVID-19 Insurance Cases
JPML Won’t Centralize All COVID-19 Insurance Cases

Law360 (August 12, 2020, 4:46 PM EDT) — The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation rejected Wednesday two petitions to centralize hundreds of cases filed by businesses seeking insurance coverage for losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, but indicated that centralization could still be appropriate for cases…
MDL Panel Considers Consolidation of COVID-19 Business Interruption Claims
MDL Panel Considers Consolidation of COVID-19 Business Interruption Claims

On July 30, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation held a Zoom hearing on a motion filed by plaintiffs’ lawyers to consolidate hundreds of business interruption claims filed across the country. The Panel permitted a number of plaintiffs’ counsel and two insurers’ counsel to each…
JPML Questions If One Size Fits All For Virus Cases
JPML Questions If One Size Fits All For Virus Cases

Law360 (July 30, 2020, 4:43 PM EDT) — A member of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation questioned Thursday whether key business interruption policy language could be construed the same way under the laws of all 50 states as the panel mulled requests to centralize…
Dozens of attorneys primed to make or break the case for novel COVID-19 business interruption MDL
Dozens of attorneys primed to make or break the case for novel COVID-19 business interruption MDL

(Reuters) – At least 40 attorneys have signed up to argue Thursday as the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation weighs petitions to create an MDL for nearly 270 lawsuits seeking Business Interruption (BI) insurance coverage for losses from coronavirus contamination or government orders restricting their…
Car insurers gave everyone a pandemic discount. Now some are raising rates
Car insurers gave everyone a pandemic discount. Now some are raising rates

It was a relief for most people when vehicle insurers said a few months ago they’d offer temporary discounts to reflect the fact that few of us were driving because of the pandemic. In most cases, those discounts are now in the rearview mirror, meaning…
6th Circuit Approves Class Action for Ky. Underpayments by State Farm
6th Circuit Approves Class Action for Ky. Underpayments by State Farm

A federal appellate court has cleared the way for a class-action lawsuit to proceed against State Farm Fire and Casualty Insurance Co. that may force the insurer to correct underpayments paid to some 65,000 policyholders. A 6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed a district…
All Roads Lead to the JPMDL: Another COVID-19 Business Interruption Declaratory Judgment Is Stayed Pending MDL Decision
All Roads Lead to the JPMDL: Another COVID-19 Business Interruption Declaratory Judgment Is Stayed Pending MDL Decision

Insurers nationwide are awaiting the forthcoming decision of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation JPMDL) on consolidating COVID-19 business interruption coverage lawsuits. In the meantime, some federal courts are staying proceedings, declining to rule on fully-briefed motions and deferring decisions that could bring clarity to…
Sonoma County rebuilds two-thirds of homes lost in 2017 wildfires
Sonoma County rebuilds two-thirds of homes lost in 2017 wildfires

On the morning of her 34th birthday last July, Katrina Lassen woke up in her new house in Larkfield Estates, a suburban subdivision where all 163 homes had been incinerated by the Tubbs fire in 2017. “It was surreal,” she said. “I just felt at…
Fire Victim Trust Funded July 1st
Fire Victim Trust Funded July 1st

SAN FRANCISCO, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The PG&E Fire Victim Trust announced today that it has been funded effective today. The Trust received the Fire Victim Trust settlement proceeds from PG&E which includes 476,995,175 shares of PG&E Common Stock and the first installment of…
Most PG&E Fire Victims Won’t Be Able to Appeal Claim Decisions in Court … With Some Exceptions
Most PG&E Fire Victims Won’t Be Able to Appeal Claim Decisions in Court … With Some Exceptions

When the trustee overseeing the compensation fund for PG&E fire victims determines the values of some 80,000 claims, the vast majority of claimants won’t have the opportunity to appeal the decision in court. But the judge overseeing the utility’s bankruptcy case has granted exceptions to…
As focus turned to coronavirus crisis, insurers pushed for a sneaky rate hike on homeowners
As focus turned to coronavirus crisis, insurers pushed for a sneaky rate hike on homeowners

It’s fair to say that most Americans see the coronavirus outbreak as an enormous and fearsome burden. Not the insurance industry. In California, the industry is using the crisis to bring about a sneaky change in insurance rules that could lead to massive increases in…
California Appoints Curriculum and Insurance Guarantee Board Members
California Appoints Curriculum and Insurance Guarantee Board Members

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced the newest members of the California Department of Insurance’s Curriculum Board and the California Insurance Guarantee Association’s Board of Governors. The Curriculum Board oversees the development of pre-licensing and continuing education curriculum for agents and brokers, which includes a…
Returning residents grapple with overgrown abandoned neighboring properties
Returning residents grapple with overgrown abandoned neighboring properties

Some solutions are emerging, but funds are short PARADISE — Abandoned properties overgrown with flammable vegetation vastly out-number new homes under construction in the burn scar, and there’s little cash-strapped local officials can really do. The fire risk caused by overgrown empty lots is putting…
A Primer On The Push To Combine COVID-19 Coverage Cases
A Primer On The Push To Combine COVID-19 Coverage Cases

Law360 June 9, 2020, 7:00 PM EDT) — Insurers and policyholders have weighed in on two petitions to centralize disputes over businesses’ coronavirus-related losses in multidistrict litigation, with supporters touting the efficiency of consolidation and opponents arguing that differences in companies’ policies and claims make…