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.

California’s native scarlet monkeyflowers usually love water and moist areas. Their little red petals attract hummingbirds, making them popular for gardens. But during the state’s historic drought in the 2010s, they suffered.

“ It was really hard to watch these populations dwindle,” said Amy Angert, a professor at the University of British Columbia who’s been studying the wildflowers for nearly 30 years. “[It] was really heartbreaking.”

The plants were dying off, even fully disappearing in some places. They couldn’t survive in the extremely dry soil. But then something surprising happened. The wildflowers adapted.

A new study from researchers at Cornell University and the University of British Columbia has found that over a few years, some of the state’s scarlet monkeyflowers successfully, rapidly evolved to save themselves from climate change, likely the first fully recorded finding of such for plants.

The ground-breaking study

Plant adaptation can be compared to like jogging on a treadmill — and climate change is speeding that treadmill up really fast. Researchers have been concerned for years that plants might not be able to run fast enough to keep up, which could cause them to go extinct.

When the study started in 2010, the team set out to monitor monkeyflower populations over time to see how they waxed and waned in different conditions. They observed the plants in places like the San Bernardino mountains, Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon and Yosemite.

Angert, who was the team leader and senior researcher, had no idea the drought would come two years later. But the heavy dry-spell created an opportunity: The team used a “time capsule” of old seeds to see how newer monkeyflowers were faring in the bone-dry soil. Some populations were luckier than others.

Through genome sequencing, researchers found that some genetic differences that appeared in plants in hot and dry places were occurring more often — even in spots where they weren’t that common before the drought.

It seemed some monkeyflowers were evolving themselves to have this adaptive trait, allowing them to not only survive the drought but also recover. This process has an official name: evolutionary rescue.

When it comes to the scarlet monkeyflowers’ physical traits, they aren’t sure what the genetic differences do. However, Angert says the populations that recovered the best were the ones that lost less water through the pores on their leaves — the stomata — while they were opening up for photosynthesis.

What this means for other plants

Angert was excited to see climate resilience in action, but cautions against taking this as a sign that we don’t need to worry about monkeyflowers or nature in general.

“Even in this species, it wasn’t all the populations that actually were resilient,” Angert added. “We saw three of them go to local extinction, and one of them hasn’t come back yet.”

It’s a hopeful tale — not a silver bullet. Still, the findings are significant. Angert says that, according to her knowledge, this is the first recorded finding of evolutionary rescue in the wild — a plant evolving to save itself and successfully doing so.

The million-dollar question is whether it can apply to other species. For now, the study suggests that if there are other species with the right set of genetic differences, they could also be resilient.

“ But of course, the challenge is figuring out which ones those are,” Angert said.

A federal judge in San Francisco said on Tuesday the government's ban on Anthropic looked like punishment after the AI company went public with its dispute with the Pentagon over the military's potential uses of its artificial intelligence model, Claude.

U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin made the remark at the outset of a hearing about Anthropic's request for a preliminary injunction in one of its lawsuits against the Pentagon, which has designated the company a supply chain risk, effectively blacklisting it.

"It looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic," Lin said, adding she was concerned that the government might be punishing Anthropic for openly criticizing the government's position.

Lin said she expected to make a ruling in the next few days on whether to temporarily pause the government's ban until the court decides on the merits of the case.

The hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is the latest development in a spat between one of the leading AI companies and the Trump administration, and it has implications for how the government can use AI more broadly.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced in late February that he would not allow the company's Claude's AI model to be used for autonomous weapons, or to surveil American citizens. President Trump subsequently ordered all U.S. government agencies to stop using Anthropic's products.

The Pentagon designated Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" earlier this month, citing national security concerns. That designation is normally reserved for entities deemed to be foreign adversaries that could potentially sabotage U.S. interests.

Anthropic has filed two federal lawsuits alleging that this designation amounts to illegal retaliation against the company for its stance on AI safety. It argues that the label will cost it both customers and revenue, since it will bar Pentagon contractors from doing business with the company, as well.

The lawsuits, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., allege the Trump administration violated the company's First Amendment right to speech and exceeded the scope of supply chain risk law.

In Tuesday's hearing, lawyers for Anthropic said it was apparently the first time such a designation had been made against a U.S. company.

Lin said the Pentagon has a right to decide what AI products it wants to use. But she questioned whether the government broke the law when it banned its agencies from using Anthropic, and when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that anyone seeking business with the Pentagon must cut relations with Anthropic.

She said the actions were "troubling" because they did not seem to be tailored to the national security concerns in question, which could be addressed by the Pentagon simply ceasing to use Claude. Instead, she said, it looked like the government was trying to punish Anthropic.

But a lawyer for the government argued that its actions were not retaliatory, and were based on Anthropic's disagreement with the government over how its AI model could be used — not the company's decision to speak out about it.

The government also argued that Anthropic is a risk because, theoretically, in the future the company could update Claude in a way that endangers national security.

Anthropic did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.

A Pentagon spokesperson said that the agency's policy is not to comment on ongoing litigation.

Copyright 2026 NPR

An oil pipeline that was shut down after a 2015 environmental disaster is flowing again after President Donald Trump issued an executive order earlier this month.

California mounted a legal fight against the pipeline this week. But environmentalists have won court rulings against the pipeline in recent years too.

Before state Attorney General Rob Bonta filed his suit, the Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit focused on Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, was already involved in its own ongoing lawsuit to keep the pipeline system shutdown. Last year, a judge granted the group a preliminary injunction to keep the pipeline closed.

“ It's a really dangerous project," said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center. “It would not only cause harm to the environment, but it also threatens public health and safety and our local economy.”

The backstory

The pipeline runs through Gaviota State Park, known for its natural beauty and coastal biodiversity.

The 2015 Refugio Oil Spill released more than 123,000 gallons of crude into the waters off Santa Barbara’s Gaviota Coast, killing hundreds of birds and other wildlife, and spreading more than a hundred miles south into Los Angeles.

The Santa Ynez offshore oil platform and Las Flores Pipeline System responsible for the spill (then operated by Exxon) were shuttered — until the federal government ordered it to restart earlier this month, citing emergency powers and an energy crisis caused by the war in Iran.

Who gets to decide?

California regulators previously ruled that the company now operating the pipeline, Sable Offshore Corp., based in Houston, had to repair the pipeline system before operations could resume.

Krop said the federal government agreed in 2016 that the California fire marshal would have jurisdiction over the pipeline’s safety. And in 2020, she said, a court ruled that only the state could approve restarting the system — an agreement the federal government signed.

“It's not proper for the Trump administration or the secretary of energy to override a court order,” Krop said.

Now, the legal battle will be over who is in charge: the California fire marshal or the Department of Energy as ordered by Trump?

The Department of Energy did not respond to LAist’s request for comment.

Krop told LAist that Californians should be concerned from both an environmental and a constitutional perspective.

 “This is not just about Sable. This is about a constitutional crisis,” Krop said. “This is going to be the new precedent. … If they care about the ability of states to enforce their own laws, if they're worried about State Parks saying what can happen within their boundaries, then they should care about this.”

Is an energy crisis the real reason?

In a statement, Sable said the the federal intervention was “to address the energy scarcity and supply disruption risks caused by California policies that have left the region and U.S. military forces dependent on foreign oil.”

The U.S. is a net exporter of oil, though the global oil market’s complexity means that what is produced here doesn’t necessarily stay in the U.S.

Krop took issue with the characterization of an energy crisis to begin with, a sentiment shared by Bonta and other Democratic leaders in California.

Krop also challenged the assertion that restarting the pipeline would help lower gas prices.

“Gas prices are set on a global market, and right now they're influenced by what's happening in Iran and the war. This project will not make a bit of difference with gas prices,” Krop said. “People don't realize probably oil from this project, it's very heavy, low quality crude oil. There's not any guarantee that it's going to even make it to the gas pump.”

SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico jury decided Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms, a verdict that signals a changing tide against tech companies and the government's willingness to crack down.

The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial, and as jurors in a federal court in California have been sequestered in deliberations for more than a week about whether Meta and YouTube should be liable in a similar case.

New Mexico jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta — which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — prioritized profits over safety. The jury determined Meta violated parts of the state's Unfair Practices Act on accusations the company hid what it knew about about the dangers of child sexual exploitation on its platforms and impacts on child mental health.

The jury agreed with allegations that Meta made false or misleading statements and also agreed that Meta engaged in "unconscionable" trade practices that unfairly took advantage of the vulnerabilities of and inexperience of children.

How much does Meta owe

Jurors found there were thousands of violations, each counting separately toward a penalty of $375 million. That's less than one-fifth of what prosecutors were seeking.

Meta is valued at about $1.5 trillion. The company's stock was up 5% in early after-hours trading following the verdict, a signal that shareholders were shrugging off the news and its potential impact on the company's business.

The social media conglomerate won't be forced to change its practices right away. It will be up to a judge — not a jury — to determine whether Meta's social media platforms created a public nuisance and whether the company should pay for public programs to address the harms. That second phase of the trial will happen in May.

A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with the verdict and will appeal.

"We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content," the spokesperson said. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online."

Attorneys for Meta said the company discloses risks and makes efforts to weed out harmful content and experiences, while acknowledging that some bad material gets through its safety net.

Other lawsuits against Meta over children's mental health

New Mexico's case was among the first to reach trial in a wave of litigation involving social media platforms and their impacts on children.

The trial that started Feb. 9. is one of the first in a torrent of lawsuits against Meta and comes as school districts and legislators want more restrictions on the use of smartphones in classrooms.

More than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it's contributing to a mental health crisis among young people by deliberately designing Instagram and Facebook features that are addictive.

"Meta's house of cards is beginning to fall," said Sacha Haworth, executive director of watchdog group The Tech Oversight Project. "For years, it's been glaringly obvious that Meta has failed to stop sexual predators from turning online interactions into real world harm."

Haworth pointed to whistleblowers like Arturo Bejar, as well as unsealed documents and other evidence, saying it painted a damning picture.

New Mexico's case relied on a state undercover investigation where agents created social media accounts posing as children to document sexual solicitations and Meta's response.

The lawsuit, filed in 2023 by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, also says Meta hasn't fully disclosed or addressed the dangers of social media addiction. Meta hasn't agreed that social media addiction exists, but executives at trial acknowledged "problematic use" and say they want people to feel good about the time they spend on Meta's platforms.

"Evidence shows not only that Meta invests in safety because it's the right thing to do but because it is good for business," Meta attorney Kevin Huff told jurors in closing arguments. "Meta designs its apps to help people connect with friends and family, not to try to connect predators."

Tech companies have been protected from liability for material posted on their social media platforms under Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, as well as a First Amendment shield.

New Mexico prosecutors say Meta still should be responsible for its role in pushing out that content through complex algorithms that proliferate material that can be harmful for children.

"We know the output is meant to be engagement and time spent for kids," prosecution attorney Linda Singer said. "That choice that Meta made has profound negative impacts on kids."

What the New Mexico jury reviewed

The New Mexico trial examined a raft of Meta's internal correspondence and reports related to child safety. Jurors also heard testimony from Meta executives, platform engineers, whistleblowers who left the company, psychiatric experts and tech-safety consultants.

The jury also heard testimony from local public school educators who struggled with disruptions linked to social media, including sextortion schemes targeting children.

In reaching a verdict, the jury considered whether social media users were misled by specific statements about platform safety by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Meta global head of safety Antigone Davis.

In deliberations, the jury used a checklist of allegations from prosecutors that Meta failed to disclose what it knew about problems with enforcing its ban on users under 13, the prevalence of social media content about teen suicide, the role of Meta algorithms in prioritizing sensational or harmful content, and more.

Juror Linda Payton, 38, said the jury reached a compromise on the estimated number of teenagers affected by Meta's platforms, while opting for the maximum penalty per violation. With a maximum $5,000 penalty for each violation, she said she thought each child was worth the maximum amount.

ParentsSOS, a coalition of families who have lost children to harm caused by social media, called the verdict a "watershed moment."

"We parents who have experienced the unimaginable — the death of a child because of social media harms — applaud this rare and momentous milestone in the years-long fight to hold Big Tech accountable for the dangers their products pose to our kids," the group said in a statement.
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