Last year, Francis Bischetti said he learned that the annual cost of the owners of the owners whom he buys from farmers' insurance for his house Pacific Palisades was going from $ 4,500 to $ 18,000 – an amount he could not afford.
He could not enter the Fair California plan either, which offers fewer advantages, because he said that he should reduce 10 trees around his roof line to reduce the risk of fire – something other than the 55 -year -old personal assistant found too expensive to manage.
He therefore decided that he would do what is called “going naked” – without buying cover on his house in the El Medio district of the community. He thought that if he watered his property all year round, it could be sufficient protection given his location south of Sunset Boulevard.
This was not the case. The house in which he lived for almost all his life burned on Tuesday with more than 10,000 other damaged houses and structures destroyed during the worst fire event in the history of Los Angeles. Sixteen deaths were confirmed throughout the county.
“It was surreal,” he said. “I grew up and I lived here for 50 years. I have never experienced during all my time here. ”
Farmers Insurance refused to comment, saying that he does not discuss the individual insured.
'A wreck of the train going down the track'
Bischetti was far from being the only owner living in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena or other districts on a hillside that had trouble maintaining their insurance in the cost of cost and the decision of many insurers to reduce their exposure to catastrophic forest claims by not renewing the policies of long -term customers. Many fire victims said the insurers had abandoned their policies last year.
Fires – should be Among the most expensive natural disasters in American history – to have Deepening of a crisis in the state home insurance market It was already in shock before devastation came.
The biggest state insurer in the state, State Farm General, announced in March that it will not renew 30,000 owner and condominium policies – including 1,626 in the Pacific palisades – when they expired.
Chubb and its subsidiaries have ceased to write new policies for high value houses with a higher forest risk in 2021. Allstate ceased to write new fonts in 2022, and Tokio Marine America Insurance Co. and its subsidiary trans Pacific Insurance Co.
Liberty Mutual was prosecuted last month By an owner who accused the insurer of having abandoned him on a false assertion that his roof has undergone mold damage.
“Pushed by the desire to maximize profits, insurance companies against the damage of goods … are committed to a disturbing tendency to abandon the insurance policies of the owners of California as the flies,” said the complaint, filed at the Superior Court of San Diego. A spokesperson for Liberty Mutual refused to comment on the dispute.
The inability to obtain coverage is reflected in the number of policies taken by the fair plan of California, which in September had around 452,000 policies, against just over 203,000 four years ago. The Fair Plan website says it is Exposure to complaints is nearly $ 6 billion in the Pacific palisades alone.
“The situation is a wreckage of a train while descending for some time,” said Rick Dinger, president of Crescenta Valley Insurance, an independent brokerage in Glendale.
Not enough insurance money to rebuild
Peggy Holter spent decades as a television journalist, a peripatetic career that took her all over the world, but there was a place where she called home and has always returned: the Pacific Palisades Condo, she moved on January 1, 1978. Everything changed after Tuesday's home storm, when her condo burned on the ground palisades.
Holter, 83, who retired only last year, now faced with uncertainty after saying that State Farm had not renewed his individual condo insurance, citing the state of his roof.
But with the loss of her documents, she does not know if and when the policy has been unleashed – and she had not yet obtained a new carrier. Insurance generally covers personal effects and the interior of a unit and offers advantages such as subsistence costs if a condo becomes unusable.
“I am not a big goalkeeper, but what I had was an entire wall of photos and albums from all the places I had been, family photos. I had a photo of my mother on a camel at the age of 52 in front of the Sphinx,” recalls Holter. “The only thing that worries me is the future, because that's what you need to do.”
Its biggest question is whether it can rebuild. The Association of Owners had a Fair Plan control policy, which has only totaled $ 20 million. This would only pay $ 550,000 per unit if the complex was not rebuilt – well below the million dollars and more than the condos ordered in recent sales. The land could be sold to a developer.
Holter, who now lives with his son in the Hollywood Hills, had paid his condo.
She returned to the complex after the fires went to examine the damage closer. There was nothing left of its unit, but the Koi pond of the complex survived, with the fish.
State Farm refused to comment on its non-renewal, affirming in a recent declaration: “Our number one priority at the moment is the security of our customers, agents and employees affected by fires and helping our customers in the middle of this tragedy.”
'We don't cover anything in California'
Matt Knight himself considers luck: he and his family could have lost everything in the late Eaton, just like Bischetti and Holter in the fire of the Palisades.
The problem began last year, he said, when he received an opinion from Safeco Insurance that his Sonoma police returned home to Altadena, where he lives with his wife and three children, would not be renewed because of a tree overlooking his garage.
The teacher of the 45 -year -old Covina primary school said that he had conscientiously cut the tree only to be told that the culture of the garage was also a problem. After withdrawing this, he said that he was told that he had to repair his damaged stucco, which forced him to paint his house and replace his old roof. However, he said he still couldn't get insurance after spending $ 30,000 for repairs.
A Safeco spokesperson, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual, said that the carrier does not comment on individual insured.
“So we went to seek the company after the company after the company, and some of them would say:” No, we do not cover anything in California “. Some said, “We do not do any new policy”. Some said: “No, we are not 91001 because it is in a fire zone, and we said to ourselves:” It's crazy “.”
One day before his police had to expire last summer, Knight said that he had finally managed to obtain similar coverage with Aegis Insurance. But in a hurry to obtain the policy in force, the house in which he lives for 16 years has been left wildly under-assured for less than $ 300,000, which would probably not pay for its reconstruction. Domestic property is evaluated at $ 1.13 million on Zillow.
The ferocious winds that attracted fire Eaton started a power failure on Tuesday evening, so Knight decided to drive his children to his parents on the other side of Altadena where they could do their homework. From there, he saw the fire starting in a street tightening the mountains near what seemed to be a power line.
“In a few minutes, it took the hill. It was incredible,” he said.
His parents' house on Roosevelt avenue escaped devastation, and throughout the night, he went to check his house. At 6 am, he had joined a brigade of owners to fight against the flames encroaching on Sonoma Drive. “The whole neighborhood was there to grab pipes and fight fires,” he said.
At the end of the afternoon, he said, the water was exhausted for the owners and the firefighters, forcing it as well as its neighbors to make their luggage and to leave. He was sure he would lose his house, but the winds went out.
“I think it was good ultimate fortune,” he said, although other neighbors were not so lucky.
Bishetti which is not so lucky either.
On Tuesday, when the fires started in the hills and all its neighbors Palisades began to pack their cars, Bischetti remained behind to continue making property, including its lawn, roof, chevrons and walls.
“I thought everything would be relatively sure,” he said. “I was trying to try to protect the house with water.”
He gradually started to pack his car with a change of clothes, one of his guitars, tax papers, property acts and hard drives on his computer. He left his computer himself in the house, as well as his amplifiers, his music equipment and his tools.
The whole street was a ghost town at 5 p.m. at that time, Bischetti had already watered his property several times. It was dusty and smoked, and a voice in his head told him that it was time to leave. “I'm going to come back for that tomorrow,” he recalls having thought. “I don't want to weigh down my car.”
It didn't work for this way.
Bischetti led nearly High School and saw a house around the corner start to burn. He then tried to go to El Medio Avenue and went to the black smoke, with flames on both sides of his car. He started to panic and realized that he could not pass.
After arriving at his sister in Mar Vista, he discovered with a neighbor that all the houses in his block had been leveled.
Bischetti said his brothers and sisters had lost family and photos and that he had lost thousands of dollars of music tools and instruments. They had also spent nearly $ 4,000 by fixing the house to rent some rooms.
Bischetti and his family have registered in the rescue funds in the event of rescue of the Federal Emergency Agency and try to obtain help to clean the property, which, according to him, could cost at least $ 10,000.
“I was preparing for that,” he said about his efforts to fight fire. “It was the last Hourra.”
