L.A. County fire victims sue State Farm for negligence, claim they were ‘grossly underinsured’

Six couples and one individual who lost their homes in the devastating Los Angeles fires are suing State Farm, claiming that they were “misled” by the insurance company and that their homes were deliberately and “grossly underinsured.”

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles on Monday, alleges that State Farm General — the California home insurer that is part of the larger State Farm Group based in Bloomington, Ill. — took advantage of homeowner’s lack of knowledge about rebuilding costs and set projected replacement costs far lower than the actual costs, leaving fire victims without enough money to replace or rebuild their homes.

State Farm, California’s largest home insurer, has engaged in a “multi-faceted illegal scheme” that is designed to “reap enormous illicit profits by deceptively misleading over a million homeowners in California,” the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit alleges negligence, breach of contract and several other causes of action, and seeks compensatory and punitive damages and reform of State Farm’s policies.

Representatives for State Farm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This marks the second time L.A. fire victims have sued insurers because they believe they were systematically underinsured. USAA and two insurers affiliated with AAA were sued in early June by policyholders with similar claims that they did not have enough money to rebuild.

Of the seven households who are a part of the lawsuit, four were from Altadena, two were from the Pacific Palisades and one was from Sierra Madre. Each of the homeowners had policies with State Farm, and some were underinsured by more than $2 million when their homes were completely destroyed by the Palisades and Eaton fires.

In one instance outlined in the lawsuit, homeowners wrote to their State Farm agent prior to the January fires to confirm whether the dwelling limit of just over $1 million would sufficiently cover the cost of rebuilding their Altadena home. The agent confirmed the amount covered the total cost to rebuild. After their home burned down, the estimates the couple received to rebuild were in excess of $3 million, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit comes days after State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced his department is launching a formal inquiry into how State Farm General is handling thousands of claims filed by fire victims after receiving complaints.

As of June 12, State Farm said it has received more than 12,800 claims related to the fires and has paid over $4.03 billion to its California customers.

State Farm has also been named as a defendant in an April lawsuit filed by homeowners who accuse dozens of insurers of colluding over the last several years to force them into the California FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort that offers limited, but typically expensive, coverage. The homeowners claim the insurers refused to write new policies in fire-prone areas and then profited from the higher premiums while reducing their liabilities with the FAIR Plan in the event of a catastrophe like the January fires.

The latest lawsuit against State Farm claims that the insurer’s alleged collusion with other carriers to push homeowners onto the FAIR Plan meant the only policies left for the company were ones that “carried deliberately suppressed coverage limits of sufficiently low magnitude,” posing a lesser exposure risk for State Farm.

The average homeowner, the complaint states, would have little reason to question the replacement costs estimated by State Farm because it writes over a million California homeowners insurance policies each year by generating reconstruction cost estimates.

The policyholders in the suit, as well as several other impacted homeowners, the lawsuit said, are unable to rebuild their homes without “relief from the legal system.”

Times staff writer Laurence Darmiento contributed to this report.