One of the most viral moments from the L.A. wildfires was viewing footage of Lynne Levin-Guzman spraying down her parents’ Altadena home with a garden hose while homes around her were burning. She explained that her 90-year-old parents, who had lived in the house for decades, had abruptly had their fire insurance yanked last year, leaving them uninsured.
Levin-Guzman’s story put a face to the insurance crisis behind the wildfire disaster. Due to the surge in wildfires in California in recent years, insurance giants like State Farm, AIG and Allstate stopped writing homeowner policies in the state. That left many homeowners reliant on the state’s insurer of last resort — the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, or FAIR Plan, which caps coverage at $3 million per residential property.
