Families who lose everything in future wildfires in California will now be able to collect the bulk of their insurance payout without cataloging every item burned in the blaze under a new state law. The legislation, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, is meant to ease one of the most punishing parts of recovery — when survivors are forced to itemize the ashes of their lives.
Starting in 2026, insurers must pay at least 60 percent of a homeowner’s personal-property coverage — up to $350,000 — without requiring a detailed inventory of every lost item. Previously, insurers were required to advance only 30 percent of the dwelling’s value with the payout capped at $250,000. The new legislation applies when a house is declared a total loss.
The law stops short of what its author and consumer advocates had sought. The original proposal — nicknamed the Eliminate the List Act — would have required insurers to pay 100 percent of the contents limit automatically without an itemized list of destroyed belongings. After receiving heavy pushback from the insurance industry, lawmakers cut the guarantee nearly in half.
“I was disappointed that it got knocked down, but it’s still a very significant step in the right direction — very significant,” said State Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat whose district includes Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, and who wrote the bill.
Under most homeowner policies, families must submit exhaustive inventories — sometimes thousands of items long — before insurers will reimburse the cost of lost belongings. Adjusters frequently demand receipts or photos to prove ownership.
Survivors of past wildfires, as well as those struggling to build their list after the January blazes that tore through Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, have described the process as its own form of trauma. One Colorado couple whose home was erased by the Marshall fire in 2021 shared a spreadsheet that stretched over 50 pages — cataloging every item down to the $3 ribbon on a gift wrapping station.
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The post California Raises Minimum Payout for Wildfire Victims’ Items appeared first on New York Times.
