Skip Links

Los Angeles Times (September 8, 2025) — Despite a court loss and sanctioning by state regulators, California’s home insurer of last resort continues to deny smoke damage claims from the January wildfires — even when toxic substances have been found in homes, according to a Times review of denial letters.

The California FAIR Plan Assn. has rebuffed policyholders seeking to have their smoke-damaged homes remediated through professional cleaning or the replacement of structures and fixtures such as drywall, insulation and lighting, the half dozen letters and email exchanges sent during July and August show.

In denying the claims, the plan initially cited language deemed illegal by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in a landmark June decision that had required policyholders to show that their property suffered “permanent physical changes.”

Last month, the plan changed the wording and told policyholders with smoke damage claims that they must show “distinct, demonstrable and physical alteration” to their property — citing a 2024 state Supreme Court case that established that threshold in an insurance dispute over a COVID-related business closure.

Hilary McLean, a spokesperson for the FAIR Plan, said the insurer is no longer applying the language at issue in the June court decision and has been “updating all customer communications to ensure they consistently reflect the correct language.”

“Our goal is and continues to be to provide fair and reasonable coverage for wildfire-related losses while maintaining the financial integrity of the FAIR Plan for all policyholders,” she said in an emailed statement.

But attorney Dylan Schaffer, who represented the plaintiff in the June decision and shared the correspondence reviewed by The Times, said whatever the language cited by the plan, the result is denials that are unfair to policyholders. Read more here.