SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers on Tuesday took aim at the insurance industry after hearing “horror stories” from constituents struggling to rebuild in the aftermath of a record-setting wildfire season that caused more than $9 billion in damages.
“Californians hard hit by these disasters should not be hung up by insurance company red tape as they rebuild their lives,” said California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, also a candidate for state Attorney General, whose office regulates the insurance market.
A package of nearly a dozen bills, unveiled by Jones and lawmakers representing areas devastated by the Wine Country and Thomas fires, aims to bolster consumer protections in future disasters, allowing homeowners more time to rebuild, for example, and giving disaster victims the option of recouping 80 percent of their losses without painstakingly documenting each item lost.
“I will guarantee you that many of us in this room couldn’t provide that information right now, let alone when we are sifting through the ashes of our belongings,” said Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, who is carrying Senate Bill 897.
Aside from SB 897’s provision on loss itemization, which would be available to victims of recent fires, the bill package is not retroactive and would apply only to future events.
Those who lost homes in wildfires and other natural disasters would be able to renew their insurance policies twice — covering at least two years after the loss — under Napa Sen. Bill Dodd’s Senate Bill 894. Insurers currently are required to renew the policies after natural disasters one time, for 12 months.
Dodd’s bill would also allow disaster victims to recover living expenses from their insurance company over a longer stretch of time — three years, rather than two — and would require insurance companies to report to the state each time they decline to renew a policy or leave the market.
A bill by Assemblywoman Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, would speed up debris removal by requiring insurers to participate in an existing program.
Last year’s deadly wildfires killed at least 45 people and destroyed or damaged more than 21,000 homes and 728 businesses, according to the California Department of Insurance.
Insurance is the “economic catalyst that will rebuild and revitalize these communities,” said Mark Sektnan, a California spokesman for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. The association says it will work with lawmakers to make sure the legislation protects policyholders without causing “unintended consequences that damage California’s highly competitive homeowners insurance marketplace.”
“Families pay their insurance premiums year in and year out,” Dodd said, “and when a major disaster strikes we need our insurance companies to have our back.”
