Los Angeles County has sued State Farm for alleged unfair business practices in the company\u2019s handling of insurance claims filed by policyholders affected by the January 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit claims that State Farm violated California\u2019s Unfair Competition Law relating to delays, underpayments and denials of wildfire claims. It alleges that State Farm subjected its policyholders to false advertising that induced them to purchase and rely on State Farm Insurance, unreasonable delays in the investigation and processing of claims, systematic underpayments of claims, frequent and improper reassignment of individual claim adjusters and illegal suppression of smoke damage claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cState Farm General strongly disagrees with Los Angeles County\u2019s characterization of our wildfire claims response,\u201d State Farm said in a statement to the LA Downtown News \u201cWe will review the lawsuit and respond through the appropriate legal process. Wildfire survivors deserve support, clear answers and a fair claims process.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also claims that State Farm had systematic barriers in place to inhibit policyholders\u2019 ability to contact and communicate with adjusters, refused to provide due compensation for Additional Living Expenses and made misrepresentations during the claims process to discourage pursuit of claims.<\/p>\n
State Farm is California\u2019s largest private insurer with over 2.8 million residential and commercial policies statewide. Additionally, a January report by the nonprofit Department of Angels indicated that State Farm customers have much higher dissatisfaction rates than customers of other insurers. A July report by the same nonprofit indicated that State Farm customers continue to experience challenges in claim denials, low claim estimates and communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cWildfire survivors have already endured unimaginable loss; they should not have to fight their insurance company simply to receive the benefits they paid for and counted on,\u201d said Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. \u201cThese delays, underpayments and denials have real consequences. They keep families from rebuilding, prolong displacement and ultimately slow the recovery of entire communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit said that third-party surveys found widespread frustration with State Farm\u2019s treatment of claims. The lawsuit is seeking restitution to impacted State Farm policyholders, injunctive relief and civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation. In its statement, State Farm said that the company cooperated fully with the review of its wildfire claims response.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus remains on helping customers recover,\u201d State Farm\u2019s statement continued. \u201cState Farm has paid more than $6.2 billion on claims related to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, including approximately $1 billion for smoke-related damage and has closed about 78% of claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue working directly with customers whose claims remain open and evaluating each claim based on the facts of the loss and the coverage provided by the customer\u2019s policy,\u201d it continued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles County has sued State Farm for alleged unfair business practices in the company\u2019s handling of insurance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[387,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-456117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-business","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}