Media Release
Every Fire Survivor’s Network (EFSN), in partnership with a UCLA research team, has launched the L.A. Fire Survivor Insurance Survey, a first-of-its-kind effort to create an open public record of how insurers perform for families after disaster.
The survey will close once enough survivors have responded to create statistically meaningful results. Survivors who want their experience represented when their insurer’s performance is measured should participate now.
Nothing less is at stake than whether Los Angeles fire survivors are able to recover.
The Los Angeles Times studied the five biggest California wildfires before 2025 and found that eight years later, only 38% of families who lost homes had rebuilt. The #1 factor determining who rebuilt was whether insurance paid fully and on time.
Recovery follows the money. And the biggest source of recovery money is supposed to be insurance.
Yet Department of Angels reports that 70% of insured L.A. fire survivors are facing delays, denials or underpayments that are holding up their recovery.
Insurers still owe L.A. fire survivors tens of billions of dollars. The survey will show where that money is getting stuck, which problems are isolated, which are patterns, and which insurers are keeping their promises.
“Some insurers count on wearing families down until they run out of money or energy to fight back,” said Joy Chen, Executive Director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network. “One family can’t know whether what happened to them is happening to thousands of others. But when survivors come together, we can see what’s really happening and hold insurers accountable.”
The Data Can Show Where Billions in Insurance Payments Are Getting Stuck
Until now, there has been no comprehensive public dataset capable of answering some of the most consequential questions about insurance recovery from the Eaton and Palisades fires:
• Did some insurance companies systematically underinsure their policyholders?
• How is each insurer handling smoke-damage claims?
• Did some insurers systematically nonrenew policyholders and move them onto the FAIR Plan before the fires?
• Which insurers show patterns of delays, underpayments or denials that warrant further investigation?
• Which insurers are communicating effectively and sending capable adjusters?
• And which insurers fulfilled their contracts, paid survivors fully and on time, and did a stellar job helping their customers recover?
The L.A. Fire Survivor Insurance Survey is designed to answer those questions, insurer by insurer.
EFSN retained Aimery Thomas, Managing Director of The Future Organization and a research expert with experience serving insurance industry clients, as the survey’s design and security consultant. Thomas advised on survey architecture, methodology and data security, and will analyze and report on survivors’ experiences with their insurers.
Every question was designed to answer one of two things: Is the insurer fulfilling its legal and contractual obligations? And how well is it actually serving its customers?
Questions developed with law enforcement and insurance bad-faith litigators capture facts that can reveal patterns of potentially unlawful conduct. Questions designed by The Future Organization measure the customer experience, including trust, satisfaction, communication and adjuster competence.
Together, the answers can reveal which patterns warrant investigation, enforcement or litigation, and which insurers did right by their customers.
Families Paid for a Promise. The Survey Will Show Who Kept It.
Insurers spend billions each year promising they’ll be there when disaster strikes. Families pay premiums for years counting on it.
But until now, there has been no public data showing how individual insurance companies actually perform when disaster strikes.
“Insurance companies sell policies, but what they are really selling is trust,” Thomas said. “Families pay premiums for years believing their insurer will be there when they need them most. This survey is designed to measure what happens when that promise is finally tested, and show which insurers delivered.”
Through previous data collections, EFSN has turned more than 2,200 firsthand accounts from L.A. fire survivors into evidence for action. That evidence enabled EFSN’s lawsuit against the California Department of Insurance and State Farm and Los Angeles County’s lawsuit against State Farm, helping unlock more than $100 million in additional payments from State Farm.
Now EFSN is taking that model public. Through the L.A. Fire Survivor Insurance Survey, thousands of individual experiences will become public data that survivors, journalists, regulators, law enforcement and policymakers can use to evaluate insurer performance and hold insurers accountable.
UCLA Will Turn Thousands of Survivor Experiences Into Actionable Data
The UCLA research team will aggregate and analyze the survey results and lead development of the public data visualization tools.
“We are honored to partner with Every Fire Survivor’s Network on this survivor-led effort,” said Gabriella Carmona, Senior Research Analyst at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “Our role is to help turn thousands of individual experiences into rigorous public data. When that evidence is in the public domain, survivors, researchers, journalists and decision-makers can see the patterns, and use that knowledge to help families get home.”
The data can provide leads for law enforcement investigations and potential prosecution, litigation, investigative journalism and regulatory enforcement, as well as evidence for policymakers considering insurance reforms.
The survey has already drawn interest from law enforcement and journalists at leading national, state and local news organizations
Individual Households Will Not Be Identifiable in the Public Data
Survey results will be anonymized and aggregated so no individual household is identifiable, with additional protections where combinations of information could risk identifying a household. Read EFSN’s Insurance Survey Data Handling and Management Policy.
Anyone Will Be Able to Explore and Analyze the Results
The survey will create three free public resources that put the results directly into people’s hands.
1. Open data. An unprecedented public dataset will let survivors, researchers, journalists, regulators, attorneys and the public uncover patterns and compare insurers, with data aggregated so no individual household is identifiable.
2. Interactive data visualization. Anyone will be able to select an insurer, issue or survivor experience, filter and combine variables, and instantly turn the results into clear charts and comparisons. Millions of data points will become a searchable picture of insurance recovery across Los Angeles.
3. A public insurer performance report. EFSN and UCLA will report results insurer by insurer and, where the data supports meaningful comparisons, rank insurers to show where serious problems emerged and which companies served their customers well.
Eaton and Palisades Fire Survivors Can Participate Now
“If your insurer delayed, denied or underpaid you, say so. If they kept their promises and helped you recover, say that too,” Chen said. “This is our chance as survivors to create the record none of us had when the fires happened. Make sure your experience counts when your insurer’s performance is measured.”
The survey will remain open only until enough responses are collected to create statistically meaningful cohorts for the insurers and groups being studied.
Without the billions insurers still owe survivors, Los Angeles risks becoming a place where only families wealthy enough to finance their own rebuilding can get home.
“Philanthropy and government cannot fill a gap of tens of billions of dollars, and they shouldn’t have to,” Chen said. “These are dollars insurers owe their policyholders. This survey will build the evidence, transparency and accountability needed to get those dollars moving so families can get home.”
The approximately 15-minute survey adapts to each household’s experience, going deeper on issues such as underinsurance, smoke damage and the FAIR Plan while skipping questions that don’t apply. It is available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean and asks for one response per household.
Survivors who want their experience represented should participate now:
firesurvey.org
