The Brief

How do I get my insurance to pay for testing of my home for toxins after the fires that raged through L.A. neighborhoods in January?

What if my insurance adjuster says they won’t cover a long-term rental?

How can I get help navigating the claims process?

These are some of the questions popping up among people displaced or affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires. LAist talked with professionals in the insurance industry and individuals navigating the claims process to put together this guide to common questions and roadblocks.

Who does what?

Let’s start with the basic layout of the insurance ecosystem, as it relates to the L.A. fires:

Insurance adjuster: Adjusters investigate the damage to your property and injuries to determine how much your insurance company owes you based on your policy.

You are likely to deal with several adjusters as you navigate the claims process, including field adjusters, who actually visit your property to investigate the damage.

You are also likely to interact with independent adjusters, who are hired by insurance companies to help process claims. Because of the huge volume of claims from the SoCal fires, many insurance companies have had to hire independent adjusters from states across the country. They may be on the ground in L.A. for a month or several months, and then a different adjuster will take their place.

And then you have public adjusters, which are very different from the adjusters mentioned above. A public adjuster works on behalf of you, the insured, to help you navigate the claims process and negotiate a settlement. They typically get paid a percentage of the payout you receive from your insurer. Public insurance adjusters, like agents and brokers, are licensed by the state insurance department. (We’ll get back to when and how you might decide to hire a public adjuster.)

Tips on working with insurance adjusters

Make sure you know your policy. Read your policy thoroughly and make sure you understand what coverage you have in all areas, including for specific things like temporary living expenses and debris cleanup.

The nonprofit United Policyholders has an excellent guide on recovering from the 2025 wildfires, which you can download for free from their website. The group also holds online forums and FAQ sessions to help fire victims navigate recovery. (The next one is a survivor-to-survivor forum, at 7 p.m. tonight. Register on the group’s website.)

If you can’t find your policy or don’t remember what company you’re insured with, the state Department of Insurance has an online form you can fill out. Once you do, they’ll forward your information to insurance companies in California so they can search their records.

Know your rights

California law requires insurance companies to offer certain things to fire victims and adjacent communities, including:

• Four months advance payment for living expenses if your home was destroyed.
• Renewal of your insurance policy for a minimum of one year after an emergency declaration (Jan. 7) if you live within or adjacent to the fire perimeter.

Also, check out these tips for wildfire victims from the state Department of Insurance.

Keep up-to-date on public guidance

Pay attention to what public officials are saying, for example, about the cleanup process and related health concerns. You may have more information than your insurance adjuster and can use that to advocate for yourself.

You can sign up for updates from the county here.

Also check out all of LAist’s coverage of the fires and recovery.

Talk to your neighbors and other fire victims

You may be getting different answers about what your insurance company will and won’t cover from someone else in your community with the same insurance plan. That’s why it’s important to compare notes with fellow fire victims, said Kelsey Szamet, a lawyer whose home (which is still standing) is in the Eaton Fire burn area.

You can use that information to pressure your insurance company to offer you what they’re offering someone else.

Consider joining Facebook groups of fire victims and attending community forums.

Document, document, document

Since you may be working with multiple adjusters, it’s vital to document all of your interactions with them. “Because when the next set of adjusters come in, you want to make sure that any agreements that are made at the onset of the claim, they're still going to be an agreement throughout the whole process of the claim,” said Sydney Greenspan, a public adjuster with extensive experience in California wildfire claims.

Ask for names and call-back numbers, and save that information.

Greenspan suggests sending an email to the adjuster after each conversation recapping the topics discussed, any agreements made and asking for confirmation of receipt. And keep those records too.

Szamet said she and her husband are keeping a daily log of conversations with their insurance company in a Google doc and updating it in real time. Even though “we’re all overwhelmed,” Szamet said, “ you have to be your own friend and your own advocate in terms of documenting.”

Advocate for yourself

It may be exasperating and almost certainly is exhausting, but you have to constantly advocate for yourself throughout the claims and, if relevant, the rebuilding process.

And sometimes, if you’re not getting something you know you’re entitled to under your policy, you may need to escalate — but keep your cool. “Essentially, what I like to politely say is, ‘Can I have your manager please?’” Szamet said. “Can I talk to the next person? Can I talk to your supervisor? And just stay at it. Be pleasant, be calm, be friendly, and realize this person is probably just following orders.”

Likewise, if you are not satisfied with the adjuster assigned to work with you, you can ask to work with a different person. For Szamet, just asking the question removed a roadblock. “We had not had our adjuster come visit our property,” Szamet told LAist. “I called and said, ‘I would like a new adjuster’ via voicemail, and I also emailed that to my agent. I got a call back within an hour and someone was at my property within two hours to look at the damage to our house.”

Be proactive with the adjuster

Because you may be dealing with an adjuster from out of state, or with someone who isn't as familiar with your situation as you are, you have to be proactive, said Samuel Bruchey, an insurance lawyer whose home was damaged in the Eaton Fire.

“We have to remember that these adjusters, even if they're well meaning and reasonable, they are overloaded with claims,” Bruchey said. “And so you have to make sure that the details of your claim that you think are important are brought to the attention of the adjuster.”

Check your insurance company’s work

If your insurance company sends its own expert to your damaged home to estimate the cost of clean-up,  ”make sure you get a copy of whatever estimate the insurance company relies upon when it decides how much to pay,” Bruchey said.

When Bruchey did this himself, he found the report had vastly underestimated the square footage of his home. “If that estimate  is a lowball number, it's incumbent upon you to find somebody to prepare an estimate of your own, give it to the insurance company, and insist that the insurance company take it into consideration,” he said.

If your insurer declines, ask them to explain why, in writing. (Again, document everything!)

Don’t move too fast

People whose homes survived the Eaton and Palisades fires may be anxious to move back in, but Greenspan, the public adjuster, urged people to be patient. “Safety should be the most important thing in everybody's mind right now,” she said.

Greenspan said people should probably wait to have their homes cleaned until after debris cleanup in the burn areas is finished since that process could kick soot and toxins back up into the air and into your home.

“ What you don't want to happen is you don't want to move too fast, do the initial cleaning and then not remediate it the right way. And in the summertime, when it's a hundred degrees, all of a sudden your house is smelling like a campfire again,” she said.

Many fire victims who lost their homes have already gotten initial payouts. But rebuilding will take years, and insurance issues are likely to get thornier as people get further away from the initial disaster, experts told LAist.

Be patient, Greenspan said. Right now, we’re still in triage mode.

Feeling overwhelmed and in need of help?

You have options.

Public adjusters: If you just don’t have the substantial amount of time and energy it takes to deal with your insurance company, you could contact a licensed public adjuster.

Public adjusters will handle all the communication and logistics with your insurance company on your behalf. You retain “ the final say on everything,” Greenspan explained.

Check out these tips on hiring a public adjuster from the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters.

Legal help: If you need help going over the nuances of your policy or have other fire-related legal concerns, many lawyers and groups are offering free legal assistance. Ask trusted neighbors and friends for referrals, or you can start with these well-established nonprofit groups:

• Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
• Public Counsel
• Disaster Legal Assistance Collaborative
• Bet Tzedek

File a complaint: If you think your insurance company, or someone claiming to work on behalf of your insurance company, is acting unlawfully, you can file a complaint with the state Department of Insurance.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is officially on the hook for providing high-dosage tutoring to students after a judge approved a settlement reached last fall.

After being accused of denying students their right to equitable education during pandemic shutdowns, the district must now provide 100,000 students — more than a quarter of the district’s TK-12 students — with three years of high-dosage tutoring under a court-approved settlement, amounting to more than 10 million hours. District staff and outside vendors will provide students with a mix of virtual and in-person sessions.

“The District is conducting a program evaluation of the tutoring program, which will explore variation in the implementation, take-up, and impact on student outcomes across a range of tutoring models and vendors,” LAUSD said in a statement to EdSource.

The tutoring mandate stems from a court-approved settlement reached in October and finalized last month in Shaw et al. v. LAUSD et al., a lawsuit filed during the Covid-19 pandemic that alleged that only 60% of the district’s students participated in virtual instruction during the spring 2020 semester, denying them “basic educational equality guaranteed to them by the California Constitution.”

LAUSD would continue to use its already existing high-dose tutoring eligibility criteria to determine which students receive the support. The district did not specify how it would measure the program’s success.

The settlement 

The high-dosage tutoring that Los Angeles Unified maintains it has been providing relies on money from the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP). The lawsuit, which includes other supports outlined in the settlement, gained final approval on Feb. 18 and is intended to help close learning gaps and improve academic performance.

The method specifically caters to students’ individual needs and provides either small group or one-on-one support that complements what they learn in the classroom, according to the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University.

“Evidence does suggest that that kind of effort would boost student outcomes,” said Morgan Polikoff, a USC professor of education.

“But I think it’s not likely to fully solve the problem, both because it’s missing a portion of the student population — a pretty sizable one — and also because I don’t know if that’s enough hours to solve the problem,” he said, referring to the fact that only a quarter of the student population will receive these services.

Ned Hillenbrand, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis LLP and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, emphasized the importance of accountability moving forward.

“Our families understood that these issues affected students across the district. They admirably pursued remedial programs for those students as well as their own children,” Hillenbrand said in the statement.

“Now that the court has approved the settlement, our goal is to hold LAUSD accountable and to maximize the benefits students receive during the three-year enforcement period.”

Challenges with access  

After the pandemic hit, Judith Larson, a plaintiff in the case, said she waited six months for a school computer to arrive, navigated connectivity challenges and even paid out of pocket for tutoring for her daughter. And one of the mentors struggled to help because she learned math in an entirely different way.

Aida Vega found it difficult to access LAUSD’s tutoring services for her daughter, who struggled academically during the pandemic but eventually graduated. But Vega had to take on an extra job to pay for the support.

“I did have the opportunity as a mom to be able to help my student that year because it was just her at that moment. I paid for her,” she said in Spanish. “But other parents had three, four children in schools and didn’t have that opportunity to pay. And now those students aren’t studying.”

LAUSD’s tutoring webpage says schools will contact families whose students qualify, and that parents can contact their local school sites for more information.

But Walt Gersón Rodríguez, the vice president of Innovate Public Schools, which supported parents in the suit, emphasized the importance of improving access, so parents and students don’t have to embark on a “scavenger hunt” to find them.

“My concern would be that this information doesn’t reach the parents; their children don’t get the service and support,” Rodríguez said. “And then, we have another generation of students that either graduate or don’t graduate and don’t go on to college and get a job or career in a competitive economy that we have today.”

Despite LAUSD’s gains in standardized test scores, which showed students are performing better than they did prepandemic, Polikoff noted that students are still “behind where they would have been had Covid not happened.”

Rodríguez added that some graduates have struggled to meet A-G requirements, courses necessary for students to be eligible to attend University of California or California State University campuses, and are having a hard time getting into college or entering the workforce.

If it weren’t for the setbacks, Larson said her daughter would have loved to attend UCLA. But she still considers herself one of the fortunate ones.

“Many moms and dads that I know, that one [dream] we share is we need to do better and change for our children,” Larson said. “But here we are taking steps, one at a time.”

L.A., you have a big choice to make this year. Mayor Karen Bass is running for a second term in office, and there's a long list of others — including City Councilmember Nithya Raman, former reality star Spencer Pratt, community organizer Rae Huang and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller — lined up to run against her.

The election is June 2. If any one candidate for mayor gets more than 50% of the vote, they'll win the election outright. If nobody meets that threshold, the top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff Nov. 3.

LAist and The LA Local are preparing to ask the candidates questions that will shape our voter guides closer to the June election. We want to make sure we're asking the right ones.

So tell us: What are the issues and questions you want the mayoral candidates to address?

Share your thoughts in the survey below.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is officially on the hook for providing high-dosage tutoring to students after a judge approved a settlement reached last fall.

After being accused of denying students their right to equitable education during pandemic shutdowns, the district must now provide 100,000 students — more than a quarter of the district’s TK-12 students — with three years of high-dosage tutoring under a court-approved settlement, amounting to more than 10 million hours. District staff and outside vendors will provide students with a mix of virtual and in-person sessions.

“The District is conducting a program evaluation of the tutoring program, which will explore variation in the implementation, take-up, and impact on student outcomes across a range of tutoring models and vendors,” LAUSD said in a statement to EdSource.

The tutoring mandate stems from a court-approved settlement reached in October and finalized last month in Shaw et al. v. LAUSD et al., a lawsuit filed during the Covid-19 pandemic that alleged that only 60% of the district’s students participated in virtual instruction during the spring 2020 semester, denying them “basic educational equality guaranteed to them by the California Constitution.”

LAUSD would continue to use its already existing high-dose tutoring eligibility criteria to determine which students receive the support. The district did not specify how it would measure the program’s success.

The settlement

The high-dosage tutoring that Los Angeles Unified maintains it has been providing relies on money from the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP). The lawsuit, which includes other supports outlined in the settlement, gained final approval on Feb. 18 and is intended to help close learning gaps and improve academic performance.

The method specifically caters to students’ individual needs and provides either small group or one-on-one support that complements what they learn in the classroom, according to the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University.

“Evidence does suggest that that kind of effort would boost student outcomes,” said Morgan Polikoff, a USC professor of education.

“But I think it’s not likely to fully solve the problem, both because it’s missing a portion of the student population — a pretty sizable one — and also because I don’t know if that’s enough hours to solve the problem,” he said, referring to the fact that only a quarter of the student population will receive these services.

Ned Hillenbrand, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis LLP and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, emphasized the importance of accountability moving forward.

“Our families understood that these issues affected students across the district. They admirably pursued remedial programs for those students as well as their own children,” Hillenbrand said in the statement.

“Now that the court has approved the settlement, our goal is to hold LAUSD accountable and to maximize the benefits students receive during the three-year enforcement period.”

Challenges with access

After the pandemic hit, Judith Larson, a plaintiff in the case, said she waited six months for a school computer to arrive, navigated connectivity challenges and even paid out of pocket for tutoring for her daughter. And one of the mentors struggled to help because she learned math in an entirely different way.

Aida Vega found it difficult to access LAUSD’s tutoring services for her daughter, who struggled academically during the pandemic but eventually graduated. But Vega had to take on an extra job to pay for the support.

“I did have the opportunity as a mom to be able to help my student that year because it was just her at that moment. I paid for her,” she said in Spanish. “But other parents had three, four children in schools and didn’t have that opportunity to pay. And now those students aren’t studying.”

LAUSD’s tutoring webpage says schools will contact families whose students qualify, and that parents can contact their local school sites for more information.

But Walt Gersón Rodríguez, the vice president of Innovate Public Schools, which supported parents in the suit, emphasized the importance of improving access, so parents and students don’t have to embark on a “scavenger hunt” to find them.

“My concern would be that this information doesn’t reach the parents; their children don’t get the service and support,” Rodríguez said. “And then, we have another generation of students that either graduate or don’t graduate and don’t go on to college and get a job or career in a competitive economy that we have today.”

Despite LAUSD’s gains in standardized test scores, which showed students are performing better than they did prepandemic, Polikoff noted that students are still “behind where they would have been had Covid not happened.”

Rodríguez added that some graduates have struggled to meet A-G requirements, courses necessary for students to be eligible to attend University of California or California State University campuses, and are having a hard time getting into college or entering the workforce.

If it weren’t for the setbacks, Larson said her daughter would have loved to attend UCLA. But she still considers herself one of the fortunate ones.

“Many moms and dads that I know, that one [dream] we share is we need to do better and change for our children,” Larson said. “But here we are taking steps, one at a time.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to pay $4.9 million to settle four lawsuits by people who were injured in collisions with Sheriff’s Department patrol cars.

The payouts come amid increased scrutiny of crashes by law enforcement officers. It has emerged as a major national issue, with cities across the country paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts because of vehicle collisions involving officers, deputies or agents.

In the latest L.A. County payouts, tied to collisions that happened between 2018 and 2020, all plaintiffs said deputies were negligent when they crashed into their cars.

County supervisors settled the lawsuits during an open-session vote Tuesday. The county admitted no wrongdoing.

A collision in Paramount

Freddy Ontiveros and Antonio De La Cruz Zamora were hit from behind in 2018 in the city of Paramount, according to their lawsuit filed in Superior Court. They alleged in the suit that a sheriff’s deputy “rear ended the vehicle which was stopped behind plaintiff's vehicle, pushing the vehicle into plaintiff's vehicle causing plaintiff personal injuries and property damage.”

The deputy was responding to a call of a robbery in progress and had activated the lights and sirens on the vehicle.

A review of the Crash Data Retrieval system found the deputy was traveling south on Paramount Boulevard at 75 mph and slowed to 35 mph at the time of the collision, according to a corrective action plan presented to the board Tuesday.

“The collision investigation concluded that the deputy sheriff caused the collision as he was driving at an unsafe speed for traffic conditions,” the plan stated.

The case settled for $1.75 million.

Later, the Lakewood Sheriff’s Station — which covers Paramount — conducted a review of all traffic collisions for the calendar year 2020 through the end of 2024. The audit revealed there were 196 total collisions for this five-year period, 129 of which were classified as preventable and 67 classified as non-preventable.

“To improve employee safety and reduce the Department's liability and exposure, Lakewood supervisors continue to conduct bi-weekly briefings which focus on the importance of safe driving as well as abiding by all the rules of the road when operating county vehicles,” the plan stated.

Other collisions

In a separate incident, Shannon Story had a green light at Palmdale intersection on Oct. 27, 2019. According to her complaint, a deputy ran a red light and crashed into Story’s vehicle as she entered the intersection. The impact of the collision caused Story’s vehicle to crash into the corner wall of a 7-Eleven convenience store.

“Plaintiff sustained significant injuries as a result of the collision,” her complaint read. She settled the case for $1.2 million.

In another case filed by Jose Gaitan, he says a sheriff’s deputy in a department vehicle rear-ended his car. LAist was not immediately able to get further details on the crash. He settled for $450,000.

The summary corrective action plan for a fourth collision describes how a deputy was backing up to make contact with a suspect when he ran into a car driven by Alejandra Gonzalez. The deputy “reversed approximately two to three feet and collided into the Plaintiff’s vehicle at approximately 5-10 mph.”

Gonzalez settled for $1.5 million.