California may soon become the first state in the nation to establish formal standards for testing and cleaning up smoke damage in homes left standing after a wildfire — a gap in state law that has fueled bitter disputes between fire survivors and their insurance companies in the wake of last year’s devastating Los Angeles County fires.
Two companion bills now sitting on the governor’s desk aim to answer a question that has plagued thousands of Southern California households since January 2025: When is it actually safe to move back home?
The Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed more than 16,000 structures and burned for nearly a month, sending up a toxic haze of burning trees, brush, plastics, metals and other manufactured materials. According to the state Insurance Department, more than 13,000 of the roughly 40,000 claims filed after the fires involved smoke damage rather than total loss.
Nearly two years later, many residents whose homes survived the flames still haven’t moved back in. They describe walking into houses that reek of smoke, coated in ash, soot and char, while they wait — often for months — on test results for lead, asbestos and other contaminants. Getting insurers to pay for cleanup and repairs has, for many, become its own ordeal. Survivors, remediation experts and even insurance representatives have all pointed to the same root problem: there simply are no statewide rules spelling out what constitutes safe, adequate smoke-damage remediation.
Assembly Bill 1642, authored by Assemblymember John Harabedian, a Pasadena Democrat, is designed to close that gap. Harabedian said the measure would establish “a first-in-the-nation standard for testing and remediation” — essentially, clear rules for identifying contamination and fixing it.
The bill works hand-in-hand with Assembly Bill 1795, written by Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Gardena Democrat, which would require insurance companies to actually follow those new standards once they’re in place. Neither bill can become law without the other, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has until the end of the month to decide on both.
“We were hearing from survivors that they weren’t getting a fair shake from their insurance companies,” Harabedian said. “Kudos to survivor groups that worked with us on this. We hope others don’t have to go through what they went through.”
The two measures are part of a broader package of post-fire legislation aimed at insurance companies, whose handling of smoke-damage claims has drawn scrutiny from regulators and become the subject of lawsuits. State Farm, which covers roughly one-fifth of California’s property insurance market, and the state’s insurer-of-last-resort, the FAIR Plan, have both been accused by the Insurance Department of delaying and denying legitimate smoke-damage claims.
Last week, Los Angeles County sued State Farm, alleging unfair business practices in how it processed claims stemming from the 2025 fires. The lawsuit leaned heavily on findings from the Insurance Department’s own investigation, which found the company had denied or discouraged customers from seeking environmental testing and refused to reimburse policyholders who paid for testing themselves. The county also alleged that for homes still standing, State Farm often sent contractors who used cleaning methods that were inadequate — and in some cases unsafe.
State Farm spokesperson Sevag Sarkissian said the company “strongly disagrees” with the county’s characterization of its claims handling.
Kareem Ali’s home in Altadena is one of the few left standing on his cul-de-sac. But he and his wife still haven’t been able to live there. Since August, they’ve been staying in a donated RV parked on their property.
State Farm covered temporary housing for the couple from January 2025 through this past April, when the insurer stopped reimbursing them for an $8,000-a-month one-bedroom rental — one the company itself had recommended. Ali stopped paying rent after that, and three months’ worth is now overdue.
When it came to testing their smoke-damaged home, State Farm denied Ali’s request for environmental testing, so he and his wife paid $3,000 for it themselves. The insurer wouldn’t reimburse them and has since delayed or denied several cleanup claims — a process complicated, Ali said, by the fact that at least six or seven different adjusters have been assigned to their case over time.
“Every time we got some sort of momentum on our claim, they’d randomly switch,” he said.
Ali said the couple eventually spent through the money State Farm had provided for personal belongings, hiring contractors on their own to clean the home, remove insulation and replace carpeting. When they told the insurer more work was needed but they had run out of funds, the company denied the claim, he said. All the while, they’ve kept paying their monthly premiums. Ali said he’s asked their adjuster directly: “What are we paying for if we’re not going to get coverage?”
Elisa Jacobs Nixon and her family are in a similar bind. Months of disputes with State Farm over smoke-damage testing and cleanup have kept them out of their Altadena home as well.
Nixon paid $6,000 out of pocket for environmental testing in May 2025, results the insurer initially ignored. Her public adjuster — a private professional hired to advocate for policyholders during claims — suggested getting a contractor’s estimate based on those findings. That approach worked: within days, State Farm sent its own industrial hygienist to inspect the property, Nixon said.
Both her original report and the insurer’s follow-up testing turned up similar results, including elevated levels of several contaminants. The more recent test also detected asbestos.
Though her family remains displaced, Nixon said things finally appear to be moving in the right direction.
“This has completely hijacked my life, my kids’ lives, it’s just taken over everything,” she said. “That’s why these parameters (in the bills) are so important. My hope is this will spread across the U.S. and help disaster survivors everywhere.”
Under Harabedian’s bill, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control would be required to develop testing, repair and removal standards for lead and asbestos by the end of 2028, followed by standards for other contaminants — including heavy metals, cyanide and lithium — by the end of 2029.
Gipson’s bill would create a legal presumption that ash, soot, char or other combustion byproducts found in a standing home after a wildfire count as wildfire-related smoke damage for insurance purposes. It would also require insurers to inspect affected properties within 30 days of a claim, cover the cost of testing needed to restore homes to their pre-fire condition, and continue paying for temporary housing until repairs are complete.
Not everyone is on board. Karen Collins, a vice president at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association who also sits on the state’s smoke claims and remediation task force, said the industry remains “technically opposed to the bills.” While she acknowledged the legislation lays out a framework, she argued that any resulting regulations should “remain grounded in science.”
Public adjuster Brian Haden shares some of that skepticism, saying the bills are short on specifics and could end up being used as leverage by both survivors and insurers alike. He predicts litigation will remain the primary way disputes get resolved and questions whether the Insurance Department will have the teeth to enforce the new rules.
Jane Lawton Potelle, founder and executive director of Eaton Fire Residents United — whose data helped shape Harabedian’s bill — agrees the legislation won’t resolve every enforcement question. She also noted the new standards won’t take effect soon enough to help her or many current survivors directly. Still, she believes the mere fact that standards are coming could influence ongoing lawsuits and settlement negotiations.
“Insurers are relying on people not to know information,” she said. “I want people to know how to protect themselves and stop being afraid. Living in a contaminated home can make you sick. And it can devalue your property.”
Lawmakers also passed several other bills this session targeting insurer conduct more broadly, addressing complaints about payment delays and the practice of cycling multiple adjusters through a single claim.
Senate Bill 876 would require insurers to assign policyholders a single point of contact within 30 days of filing a claim, and to provide written notice any time a third adjuster is brought onto a case within a six-month span. It also mandates that insurers submit detailed disaster response plans to the Insurance Department by April 1, 2028, updated every two years or whenever the insurance commissioner requests it.
Senate Bill 877 would require insurers to include all preliminary and final calculations of loss amounts, covered damages and repair costs in claims documents provided to policyholders within 15 days of a request.
Senate Bill 878 would require insurers to pay out the cash value of a destroyed property within 30 days of it being declared a total loss, followed by the remaining replacement cost within 30 days of receiving the necessary documentation. Insurers that miss those deadlines would owe accrued interest on the amount owed.
Original source: CalMatters
