“It is likely that we will see reduced private equity investments in property and casualty companies.”
-Rose Law Group Corporate Transactions Director Shruti Gurudanti
By Laurence Darmiento and Summer Lin | LA Times
- Before the fires burned more than 10,000 structures in Los Angeles County, insurers chose not to renew thousands of home insurance policies in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other fire-prone areas.
- The rising costs and cancellations left many fire victims without adequate means to cover their losses, highlighting a deepening crisis in California’s property insurance market.
Last year, Francis Bischetti said he learned that the annual cost of the homeowners policy he buys from Farmers Insurance for his Pacific Palisades home was going to soar from $4,500 to $18,000 — an amount he could not possibly afford.
Neither could he get onto the California FAIR Plan, which provides fewer benefits, because he said he would have to cut down 10 trees around his roof line to lower the fire risk — something else the 55-year-old personal assistant found too costly to manage.
So he decided he would do what’s called “going bare” — not buying any coverage on his home in the community’s El Medio neighborhood. He figured if he watered his property year round, that might be protection enough given its location south of Sunset Boulevard.
It wasn’t. The home he lived in for nearly all his life burned down Tuesday along with more than 10,000 other homes and structures damaged or destroyed in the worst fire event in the history of Los Angeles. Sixteen deaths have been confirmed countywide.
“It was surrealistic,” he said. “I’ve grown up and lived here off and on for 50 years. I’ve never in my entire time here experienced this.”
Farmers Insurance declined to comment, saying it does not discuss individual policyholders.
