Your Deadline to Sue Your Insurance Company May Be Coming Up Fast
Beat the Clock starts THIS Thursday. Know your rights, deadlines and options before time runs out.
Dear friends,
For some fire survivors, the deadline to sue their insurer may come as early as January 7, 2027.
January sounds a few months away. But if you may need to sue, you need time to find a lawyer, gather your documents, have your claim evaluated, and get your case prepared. November may be when you need to know what you’re going to do.
But do you even have a case? Was yours just a miserable insurance experience, or could you take legal action? Did you get everything your policy owes you?
Let’s find out together.
I’m thrilled to invite you to spend Thursday evenings with us for the next seven weeks. Beat the Clock is our new, free legal education series for Eaton and Palisades fire survivors. Experienced lawyers and other experts will answer your questions live, and every session comes with a short action guide you can use right away.
Come to one Thursday or all seven. Bring your questions and your survivor friends!
Thursdays, October 1 to November 12 | 7–8 PM Pacific | Live on Zoom
Choose your free sessions:
efsurvivors.net/beat-the-clock
October 1 | The Clock Is Ticking: Your Claims and Their Deadlines
We begin this Thursday with the question that matters now: How much time do I have? Learn why January 7 may or may not be your deadline, which other clocks are running, and how lawyers evaluate a case.
October 8 | Taxes: Casualty Losses, New Federal Relief & Surviving an IRS Audit
Before an important October 15 tax deadline for some survivors, get clear on disaster-loss deductions, wildfire tax relief, unresolved insurance payments, rebuilding or selling, and the records you’ll need.
Know a terrific tax attorney or disaster-loss CPA who explains things plainly? We’re seeking an expert for this session. Please email me at joy.chen@efsurvivors.net.
October 15 | Bad Faith: When Your Insurer Delays, Lowballs or Denies
Adjusters change. Months pass. Your evidence goes unanswered. When might that awful experience give you grounds to sue, and what should you document now?
October 22 | Underinsurance: What Are You Still Owed, and Who May Be Responsible?
Have a gap between your coverage and the cost to rebuild? Join the club. Why were your limits too low, what benefits might you still be owed, and could your insurer, agent or broker be responsible?
October 29 | Smoke Damage: Make Your Home Safe to Return To
Your insurer says your home is safe or your smoke damage isn’t covered. What testing and evidence matter? How can you challenge an inadequate response, and what can you do after a denial?
November 5 | Dumped onto the FAIR Plan: Your Coverage Gaps, Rights & Potential Claims
Were you nonrenewed or moved to the FAIR Plan? Learn what to ask about your old and new coverage, the gaps you discovered after the fire, and who may bear responsibility.
November 12 | Ask the Lawyers: What Do I Need to Do Now?
This night belongs to you. Bring your questions about your claim, finding a lawyer, suing while you negotiate, or what to do if you’re not ready.
No 30 pages of legalese. Just information you can use while there’s still time to use it.
Fire survivors Larry Midler, former General Counsel of CBRE, and I are guiding the series.
Please share Beat the Clock with every survivor who could benefit. Our social toolkit has ready-to-share images and messages for texts, emails, newsletters and social media. Invite your survivor friends to join us this Thursday!
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jXDHqCNB_-bE1Xzomsm8VIjRaCOvd0hC?usp=sharing
Our Zoom room holds 1,000, and if it fills, additional viewers will be directed to a YouTube livestream.
Know your rights. Know your deadlines. Help a survivor know theirs.
efsurvivors.net/beat-the-clock
Participating professionals are here to educate survivors, not solicit clients. EFSN does not recommend or endorse participating attorneys or firms. Sessions offer general education, not individual legal or tax advice.
Governor Newsom’s Vetoes: Was It “Petty Politics”?
Since we issued our news release yesterday, I’ve received so many emails and texts asking: Why would Governor Newsom veto two such basic protections for people trying to get their insurance claims paid?
Today, a CalMatters article carried statewide through AP syndication asked it right in the headline: “Newsom vetoes insurance-claim bills: Is it ‘petty’ politics?”
The article notes that Newsom signed another bill addressing insurance claims while vetoing the two sponsored by fire survivors and Consumer Watchdog. Consumer Watchdog’s Carmen Balber called the vetoes “a real black mark on the governor” and said they appeared to be for “a petty reason.” Senator Sasha Renée Pérez pushed back on Newsom’s claim that existing rules were enough, pointing to the delays and denials survivors still face. Asked whether the vetoes were retaliation for our opposition to Newsom’s utility liability proposal, his office did not answer.
The vetoes received sharp criticism from consumer advocates across news coverage. The Daily Journal reported Brian Kabateck said Newsom may be trying to “curry favor with the business community” ahead of a presidential run. Shant Karnikian, who will join us this Thursday for Beat the Clock, explained how SB 877 could have helped survivors whose insurers lower their damage estimates without explaining why.
Read CalMatters:
https://calmatters.org/economy/2026/09/newsom-vetoes-insurance-bills/
Read the Daily Journal (paywalled):
https://www.dailyjournal.com/article/394863-newsom-vetoes-wildfire-insurance-bills-aimed-at-claims-delays
Whatever drove the vetoes, our next step is clear: build evidence so clear and comprehensive that the need for law enforcement and better protections is undeniable.
Build the Evidence to Unlock Our Insurance Payouts
More than 1,400 survivors have taken the L.A. Fire Survivor Insurance Survey! We’ve far exceeded our original goal of 1,200. Well done, team!
Our next step is to fill the gaps. We especially want to hear from Palisades survivors, FAIR Plan policyholders, survivors with smoke damage, renters, uninsured survivors, Black and Latino survivors, and survivors who prefer Spanish, Chinese or Korean.
EFSN’s earlier survivor data helped drive the State Farm investigation and lawsuit. Now we’re gathering evidence across every insurer. We plan to release deidentified, aggregated results in mid-November, when many survivors will be deciding whether to pursue legal action.
The findings may help you and your lawyer understand whether what happened to you happened to hundreds of others, while helping law enforcement, regulators, journalists and advocates see where to look.
The survey goes well beyond delayed and denied claims. It asks whether some insurers left families underinsured, pushed them onto the FAIR Plan or out of coverage, mishandled smoke damage, or treated survivors well.
Let’s make sure every part of our community is represented in the evidence that can drive investigations, accountability and payment of the insurance money survivors are owed. Once the survey closes, we can’t add the people who were missing.
Every Palisades and Eaton fire survivor is welcome. Please take the survey and send it to two other survivors today.
Ready-to-use graphics for texts, email and social media:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FSBmYSyPAb7zIpZKHr0V7ZPss4GnVJd4?usp=drive_link
Here’s an email you can copy and share with a graphic from the toolkit:
Subject: Build the Evidence to Unlock Our Insurance Payouts
After the fire, did your insurance company help you or hurt you?
Eaton and Palisades fire survivors, in partnership with a UCLA research team, are building a public record of how insurers treated us: who paid what they owed, who left families underinsured, how each company handled smoke damage, and who delayed, denied or underpaid.
Every survivor’s experience matters: renters, homeowners, condo owners, mobile-home owners, FAIR Plan policyholders, uninsured survivors, and people whose insurers did right by them.
Your identity stays private. The patterns become public. No individual or household will be identifiable. Those patterns can drive investigations, enforcement, litigation, journalism and insurance reform.
More than 1,400 survivors have contributed. The survey takes about 15 minutes and is available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean.
Take it now so your experience counts when your insurer is measured:
firesurvey.org
Please share it with other Eaton and Palisades survivors, too.
Share the survey. Build the evidence. Get survivors home.
Insurance Commissioner Candidate Debate Coming Up
Thursday, October 8 | 11:30 AM–1 PM | Online or in Sacramento
California’s next insurance commissioner will have a huge say in whether insurance companies keep their promises to families like ours. I’m excited to hear Senator Ben Allen and Jane Kim discuss their plans in a free conversation moderated by the wonderful Levi Sumagaysay of CalMatters.
Join Me in the Palisades the Next Two Sundays
This Sunday, October 4 from 12-2p: Bring your lunch and come sit with friends at the 2nd annual The Longest Table in the Palisades. Thank you to host Lee Ann Daly for extending a special invitation to all Palisades AND Eaton survivors! It’s free, and I would love to see you there. Register here.
Next Sunday, October 11: PaliBu Recovery Expo. Come meet more than 150 exhibitors offering recovery resources from 11 AM–3 PM in downtown Pacific Palisades. I’ll be hosting an EFSN table, so please stop by! Event info: https://palibu.org/
Better yet, come volunteer for an hour at the EFSN table! Take an hour out of your visit to the Palibu Recovery Expo to hang with me, share what EFSN offers and invite neighbors to take the insurance survey. We need three volunteers per shift. I’ll give every volunteer a signature EFSN “DON’T MESS WITH FIRE SURVIVORS” T-shirt or tank top. Sign up fast!
These next few weeks are crucial. Let’s get answers, build the evidence and help one another decide what to do while there’s still time.
With love,
Joy