California E&S Insurance

As some currently displaced because of the Eaton Fire I’ve been in lots of groups and message boards where people are comparing their insurance’s response (or lack there of). Let me tell you… they are all awful. The one people are having the least issues with seems to be USAA, which isn’t helpful if you don’t qualify. The worst seems to be State Farm and California Fair Plan. We have great coverage and high limits from Mercury and while we have been reimbursed way more at this point than most of our neighbors, it’s mostly because I’ve taken on the full time job of making them do their job and they have thrown up every brick wall they can to delay or deny payments. From an insured’s point of view strictly speaking about getting access to your coverage, the most difficult position to be in is damaged but not a total loss. It allows the insurance to argue over every penny. The total loss situations have no arguments and are generally getting their full dwelling payouts and high percentage of personal property (75-80%) without needing to itemize. I’m having to fight about whether a do not drink/do not boil order for my water makes my home uninhabitable. The fatFIRE way of dealing with this issue would be to hire a public adjuster right off the bat to do the fighting for you and keep a bad faith litigator on retainer. You pay them a percentage of the recovery but relieve yourself of the fight. As a word of warning to everyone- make sure if your home is held in a trust that your trust is an insured on your home owners policy. Insurance companies are using this as a reason to deny coverage even if the insureds are the trustees of the trust. Open a bank account in the trust’s name because checks from insurance will be made out to the trust. Double check all your policy limits to make sure they actually cover your rebuild costs (tariffs are going to make this more expensive). Make sure all the details on your policy are accurate- number of beds and baths, who lives at the property, year built, etc etc. Any discrepancies on those items gives the insurance company a greater ability to deny coverage.

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