Let’s Get the Insurance Payouts We’re Owed
1,100+ survivors have spoken. Now let’s help our neighbors get counted too.
Dear friends,
WOW.
Since we publicly announced the L.A. Fire Survivor Insurance Survey last Monday, more than 1,100 of you have taken it. Our original goal was 1,200. We’re almost there!
That’s HUGE. It shows how determined our community is to hold every insurer accountable, unlock the insurance payouts we’re owed, and get families home.
To every survivor who’s spent 15 minutes sharing your experience, thank you! You’re helping build something that’s never existed: the nation’s first public record of how each insurance company treated its customers after a major disaster.
Now let’s help the survivors who are still missing from this record to be included!
Your information stays private. The patterns become public.
The question I hear most often is: Will my identity be protected?
YES.
Your privacy is paramount to EFSN and our UCLA research team. We’re deeply grateful for your trust and take it extremely seriously.
The survey has two main parts.
The first gathers data about underinsurance, claims handling, delays, denials, underpayments, customer satisfaction, trust and more.
Your property address is required as a security measure. Before any results become public, the connections between your answers, address and personal information will be broken. The data will be de-identified and reported only in groups of households.
The public will see the patterns. No individual or household will be identifiable.
Most questions were written by consumer-fraud law-enforcement attorneys and insurance bad-faith litigators to uncover whether any insurer may be engaging in illegal conduct.
For example, many people assume underinsurance is the homeowner’s fault. But as we learned in our webinar with former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, insurers may bear responsibility. The survey will show how families became underinsured and whether any insurers are systematically underinsuring households.
The survey also includes ten questions measuring trust, satisfaction and other parts of your experience. These vital measures will allow us to create scorecards for every major insurer.
The second part of the survey lets you share how your insurer’s actions impacted you and your family. You may also say you’re open to speaking with the media through our Survivor Media Corps.
Those questions are optional. Even if you say yes, we’ll contact you first, explain the outlet and story, and let you decide whether to participate.
Read our full data-handling and privacy policy.
Every Survivor Counts
Every Fire Survivor’s Network begins with Every for a reason. We believe in inclusion, and we want every survivor to get the payouts they are owed.
Our current dataset is underrepresented among:
• Renters
• California FAIR Plan policyholders
• Survivors with smoke-damaged homes
• People insured by smaller or surplus-lines carriers
• Households with no insurance at all
• Renters, condo owners and mobile-home owners
• Spanish, Chinese and Korean speakers
• African American Black and Latino households
Palisades households are also slightly underrepresented.
Our team will be conducting specific outreach to these underrepresented groups this week.
Thank you to the Pali Post for featuring the survey here!
We will close the survey as soon as we have statistically meaningful results for each insurer and group studied. That means the window to be counted is closing fast. Before it does, we want as many Eaton and Palisades households as possible in this evidence. The more complete, detailed surveys we receive, the stronger our evidence and the louder our collective voice. We’ve nearly reached our original goal. Now let’s run up the score!
We’ve already seen survivor data enable the County’s State Farm litigation and the Farmers investigation. This evidence can drive law enforcement, litigation and insurance reform, reveal which companies may be breaking the law and which are doing a great job, and help get insurance dollars moving so more families can get home.
Two Ways to Help More Survivors Be Counted
Here are two things you can do today:
1. Text the survey to three Palisades or Eaton fire survivors.
The neighbor fighting for temporary housing money. The friend dealing with smoke damage. The renter who lost everything. The FAIR Plan policyholder. The family whose insurer actually came through for them.
2. Bring in one organization.
Think of a neighborhood group, school community, church or faith organization, business association, nonprofit, legal organization or elected official’s office.
Ask them to share this newsletter and survey with the fire survivors they serve.
We’ve made it easy. Find ready-to-share graphics, flyers, sample emails and social media posts here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FSBmYSyPAb7zIpZKHr0V7ZPss4GnVJd4?usp=sharing
Copy and share:
After the fire, did your insurance company help you or hurt you?
Eaton and Palisades fire survivors and a UCLA research team are building the nation’s first public record of how insurers treated us: who paid, delayed, denied or underpaid. Every experience matters, including if your insurer did right by you.
Your identity stays private. The patterns become public. Those patterns can drive investigations, enforcement, litigation, journalism and insurance reform.
More than 1,100 survivors have contributed. It takes about 15 minutes.
Take the survey now so your experience counts when your insurer is measured:
FireSurvey.org
Please share it with every Eaton and Palisades fire survivor you know so their experience can count too.
Thank you for keeping EFSN going
To the hundreds of you who have contributed financially to keep EFSN going, THANK YOU.
Your generosity makes all of this possible, from gathering survivor data to using it for advocacy, survivor education, accountability and unlocking funds to help families get home.
Our tiny team of Matt, Reina, Sandra and me is so grateful for the gifts that allow us to do and expand this work.
This insurance survey alone is a huge undertaking. We’re already hiring the designers and data-visualization experts who will build the public tools and materials for our national release, including our forthcoming report showing how each insurer is performing.
We’re enormously grateful to Habitat LA for investing in us and providing our fiscal sponsorship home for the past year and a half.
We’ve now moved our fiscal sponsorship to Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, or SEE.
Many of you have asked: Why can’t I donate directly to EFSN? Why do I have to donate through a fiscal sponsor?
Because SEE gives us a full financial, HR, legal, compliance and operational backbone far more cost-effectively than we could build all of those systems ourselves. That means your donation goes farther toward our mission, and our team can focus on serving you.
If you are a monthly or quarterly donor, please move your recurring gift from Habitat LA to SEE. You can make your new gift here:
For DAFs and institutional gifts, please use the giving information here:
If you’d like to discuss a major gift to support the rollout of our survey results and the survivor education, enforcement and advocacy work that follows, please email giving@efsurvivors.net.
TOMORROW (Wed) 7p on Zoom: Gap Financing Solutions
EFSN is proud to host the Eaton Fire Collaborative’s new weekly Wednesday sessions connecting survivors directly with the experts and organizations who can help.
The first webinar, Gap Financing Solutions, is TOMORROW, Wednesday, September 23, from 7 to 8 PM. It will feature practical options and the key decisions to understand before taking on debt or committing your remaining resources. All Eaton and Palisades survivors are welcome!
Habitat Grants Available Now
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles has more than 200 Accelerator Fund grants available now, first come, first served.
Apply for an Accelerator Fund grant.
Additional Habitat programs:
• ReBUILD LA Disaster Response
• Appliance Replacement Grant for 2025 L.A. wildfire survivors
• Home Damage and Assistance Form
Volunteer Survivor Leadership Opportunities
Palisades Community Recovery Lab: The Palisades Recovery Coalition is seeking residents from every background to help shape recommendations on density during two Saturday sessions, October 10 and 24. Transportation, childcare, food and beverages will be provided. Apply here.
Help Keep Altadena Together: Altagether is recruiting volunteer Neighborhood Captains to connect neighbors, share useful information and help people stay connected throughout recovery. No special expertise is required, just care for your neighborhood. Learn more here.
Let’s Get the Insurance Payouts We’re Owed
If you’ve not yet taken the survey, take it now so your experience counts when your insurer is measured.
If you’ve already taken it, or if you’re an ally, help more survivors make their experience count. Find ready-to-share graphics, flyers, sample emails and social media posts here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FSBmYSyPAb7zIpZKHr0V7ZPss4GnVJd4?usp=sharing
Together, let’s build the evidence to help our whole community get the insurance payouts we’re owed, so more families can finally get home.
With hugs and gratitude,
Joy