Definitely. The architecture alone is outstanding. All the stone blocks are perfectly aligned. The view on a clear day is beautiful from the Getty Center. The architecture tour is fascinating. They spent some huge amount of money on just the building, a billion dollars or similar crazy amount, and that was paid for with just the earnings of what’s in the trust.
4 Likes
LAX did not experience any flight disruptions because of the fires. Occasionally take off and landing patterns are reversed because of weather and that happened the first couple of windy days.
You aren’t, by any chance flying Hawaiian are you? If so, getting to their gates at LAX is a real pain.
I just donated to both of those.
3 Likes
Nope, American.
1 Like
One thing with the L.A. fire is it seemed to affect people with different socioeconomic statuses, including superstars. My hope is that those with more resources will be able to help those with fewer. Negative mental health consequences of disasters, like the L.A. fires, are common but they can be mitigated and even prevented if the right supports are in place and the community comes together.
We’ve seen some evidence, but I hope the boldfaced statement plays out.
5 Likes
Long article about the insurance situation in California. I am still processing it, and don’t live in California. Not sure any other states function with something like the Fair Plan, or if it’s unique to California. I posted part of the article, gift link below.
ALTADENA, Calif.—A little-noticed rule change last year by California’s insurance regulator will likely shift a large chunk of the cost of the Los Angeles wildfires to homeowners across the state.
Pushed by insurers, the change puts California homeowners on the hook to pay directly toward the cost of rebuilding from very large disasters through even fatter insurance bills—whether they were exposed to the L.A. fire or not.
“That would be a huge wake-up call for Californians because they have no idea that the rules have changed,” said Dave Jones, a former California insurance commissioner.
The new policy affects the backstop for California’s Fair Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which sells fire-damage policies to homeowners who can’t get coverage elsewhere.
The worry is that the Fair Plan lacks the resources to pay for the quickly escalating cost of the fires, which have destroyed tens of thousands of structures.
The rules change means insurance companies can bill their customers if they are forced to bail out the plan, which has an estimated $200 million in cash and $2.5 billion in reinsurance, according to data it reported last year.
That is likely not enough to cover the Fair Plan’s share of the losses from the fires, forecast at up to $6 billion by analysts at Evercore ISI.
The Fair Plan’s business ballooned after private insurers pulled back from the state, gearing up for a disaster by not renewing policies as their risk models warned of likely conflagrations.
As the blazes spread, estimates of the financial toll keep rising. Analysts at Morningstar DBRS now forecast insured losses of up to $30 billion—the highest for any fire in the world in recent times.
Private insurers have sufficient reserves to cover the expected claims, and none are expected to be pushed into insolvency by the disaster, analysts said.
But the spiraling cost could financially overwhelm the Fair Plan, the decades-old, government-created insurance safety net.
Like similar insurance safety nets in more than 30 other states, including disaster-prone places such as Florida, the Fair Plan wasn’t set up as a typical insurer. It operates with little cash in the bank, as a way of keeping rates—while higher than private insurers’ premiums—within reach of policyholders. Regulated insurers agree to bail out the plan, if needed, as a price of doing business in the state.
The Fair Plan is required to take all-comers**,** which means its customers are heavily concentrated in fire-prone areas.
A heap of charred rubble marks where Henry and Brenda Sharp’s $2 million Altadena building once stood. The couple, in their 70s, are scrambling to figure out their losses, and how much their insurer, the Fair Plan, will pay.
“It’s burned down,” Brenda Sharp said of their three-bed, three-bath home and three rental units on the property. “Our whole neighborhood burned down.”
In the Sharps’ Altadena ZIP Code alone, the plan had insured almost $1 billion of properties at the end of September, up 47% from the previous year, the latest data show.
If the Fair Plan breaches its financial resources, the state can call on commercial home insurers to pay the rest of the claims, by imposing what’s called an assessment on the companies.
The charge on each company would be roughly proportionate to its share of the home-insurance market. The largest home insurers include State Farm**,** Farmers Insurance, Allstate and Mercury Insurance.
If the Fair Plan loses more than $2.5 billion, it will likely need to assess, said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University. “It’s very likely they have lost more than $2.5 billion,” he added.
A spokesman for the Fair Plan said it is “too early to determine if an assessment will be sought as claims are just beginning to be submitted and processed.”
Because of the rule change made last year by the state’s embattled insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara, companies can add to their customers’ bills 50% of the first $1 billion of an assessment, and 100% of any amounts over that, subject to his agreement.
An assessment would put further upward pressure on California’s already fast-rising home-insurance rates, according to analysts.
Many of those affected have suffered total losses. Karl Susman, a Los Angeles-based insurance agent, said 78—and counting—of his clients in the Pacific Palisades, one of the Fair Plan’s biggest markets, have nothing left.
One client’s family has been “left with the clothes on their back and a laptop” that was in their car as they fled the flames, Susman said.
The Fair Plan was set up in the 1960s when the Watts riots led to widespread fire damage in Los Angeles, and prompted commercial insurers to pull away from the market.
The plan was initially intended to cover only a fraction of homeowners. It has taken on an outsize role as private insurers have curbed coverage.
Seven of the 12 biggest home-insurers in the state have stopped or restricted sales of new policies, saying the rates allowed by regulators are insufficient to compensate for wildfire and other losses.
Gift Link: Insurers’ Rule Change Puts California Homeowners on the Hook for L.A. Fire - WSJ
3 Likes
per this article the FAIR plan is the second largest insurer (16% of total) in the fire prone areas. (State Farm is #1 with 20%.)
1 Like
I’m sitting here wondering why this is a “wake-up call”. It’s a fact of life.
1 Like
1 Like
I’m not sure what you mean…are you saying the details in the article were common knowledge among CA homeowners residents? Based on the CBS News article that bluebayou posted this was getting some play in the news cycle nearly a year ago. It seems if all CA residents will have to pay for rebuilding, they should have some say in those rebuilding efforts. I know that’s a pipedream of course.
For those who didn’t read all of @bluebayou’s CBS article:
Harvey Rosenfield, the founder of Consumer Watchdog, said the insurance companies are intentionally forcing homeowners into the FAIR Plan as a way of getting every homeowner in the state to pay the FAIR Plan’s losses.
“From our point of view, we see this as creating a scare tactic,” he said, “to create an opportunity for the Legislature to bail the insurance industry out by forcing every homeowner in the state to pay off the debts of the FAIR Plan, whether you’re in a risky area or not. So, even if you’re in downtown San Francisco, and the risk of wildfire is nil and you’re not a FAIR Plan policy holder, you could still pay thousands of dollars to bail out the FAIR Plan.”
As wildfires grow in size, so does the cost of recovery. It is a cost that will eventually be borne by everyone, which means no one will be very happy about it.
If every homeowner is required to pay thousands of dollars to bail out the FAIR Plan, I strongly suspect they will be very vocal about the rebuilding efforts. It might not matter if Gavin Newsom waived all environmental policies for rebuilding…the citizens might require them in exchange for their funds. And, of course, I also foresee a big lawsuit that will take years to go through the court system.
1 Like
The CA FAIR plan is supposed to be a last resort insurance coverage for hard to insure properties (fire, earthquake). It has become a “first” rather than last resort for many people. It is supposed to be funded by those in it at rates high enough to cover itself. But it’s also has the provision (down at the bottom of the PDF) that if it can’t fund itself then those NOT in the plan get to do so. Essentially everybody gets to pay for the guy who built a fancy house in the middle of fire country in a disaster as large as this.
2 Likes
The Consumer Watch Dog organization is one of the main contributors to the insurance problem in California. They have - doggedly - fought rate increases resulting in abnormally low costs to some homeowners. When the legacy carriers would not longer play that game they redlined some areas, (with the help of counties and their fire/danger zoning), non renewing thousands of policies.
I’ll give actual numbers…
We were with Statefarm and the 2023-2024 premium was $6,800. That reflected a large increase from the prior year (our insurance commisioner was slowly allowing greater annual increases). We were non-renewed by state farm.
So…now it is $11,000 to the CA FAIR plan + $2,500 for a DIC (aka wrap around plan) + an increase of $1500 in annual car insurance rates mainly due to us no long bundling car and home. For a grand total of $15,000 - more than double we were paying prior to the non renewal.
Now, had Statefarm been able to actually charge us $15,000 would they have kept the policy…I tend to think yes. But instead the regulations would not allow them to risk adjust and now we - along with tens of thousands of CA homeowners - are in the FAIR plan.
11 Likes
The way the regulatory apparatus is setup – under law – Consumer Watchdog actually gets paid by the insurers for challenging their rate increases.
btw: we are starting to veer into politics in the non-politic thread…
I know this wasn’t your point, but I feel like it is important to clarify.
A very large percentage of homes that burned were not in the fire zone
We’re talking about homes that were 70-100 years old and not “fancy” -generational homes that were built long before any fire zone was created. As an example, my relative’s home that burned was built in 1930.
8 Likes
Gotcha. Any clue what percentage of those outside the fire zone had a FAIR plan or were still able to get regular insurance?
1 Like
I just read it could take 9 to 12 months just to clear debris. All those lithium batteries in Teslas and other electronics are hazardous waste and can’t just be bulldozed and taken to a landfill.
The water systems, electric (buried I hope) and some roads will need rebuilding.
It’s a nightmare.
3 Likes
Older homes may well contain lead, asbestos and other hazardous chemicals and materials. It’s a similar (but much larger) issue to what Maui faced after its awful fire.
5 Likes
Interesting article and graphics on WaPo. Sorry, no gift article link.