These home insurance companies denied the most claims
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California has barred home insurers from dropping or refusing to renew California wildfire victims for a year. In 2023, three of California’s major home insurance companies denied claims at a higher rate than what was seen in other parts of the U.S., a new report found.
![[California has introduced a new rule that prevents insurance companies from dropping a policy until 2026 in the wake of wildfires that have destroyed 12,000 structures]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/15/15/834e8e357ec54b788f197a418879c05a.jpg)
A pair of USAA affiliates declined 48 percent of the claims made in 2023, and Allstate Insurance — based in Illinois — denied 46 percent of the claims made that year. All were denied before the recent wildfires. The report done by Weiss Ratings found that the denial rate across the entire U.S. was about 37 percent in 2023. That number is up by 12 percent over the denial rate 20 years ago — 25 percent — but still overall much lower than the rate of the three major California insurers.
“It’s not fair for me to say all these [rejected] claims were legitimate, but it’s equally unfair for insurance companies to claim they’re all illegitimate,” Martin Weiss, the CEO of Weiss Ratings, told the LA Times. Weiss theorized that major companies were rejecting more claims due to the increase in climate-related events that cause damage — or outright destroy — homes.
California's Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara made sure insurers couldn't pull the same move on the LA wildfire victims. He barred insurance companies from dropping or refusing to renew any client who was affected by the LA wildfires for up to a year.
“Losing your insurance should be the last thing on someone’s mind after surviving a devastating fire,” Lara said in a statement Thursday. “This law gives millions of Californians breathing room and hits the pause button on insurance non-renewals while people recover.”.
