Victims of the January 2025 wildfires sad with how insurers have dealt with their claims have filed lawsuits, protested and complained to local and state officers.

This week, they received help from an sudden ally: President Trump.

“It was brought to my attention that the Insurance Companies, in particular, State Farm, have been absolutely horrible to people that have been paying them large Premiums for years, only to find that when tragedy struck, these horrendous Companies were not there to help!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

He also requested U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to give him a checklist of insurers that “acted swiftly, courageously, and bravely” to fulfill their legal obligation and another checklist of those that had been “particularly bad.”

State Farm, California’s largest home insurer, is under investigation for how it has dealt with January 2025 wildfire claims. In a assertion responding to the president’s post, it said it has acquired 13,700 claims, paid out $5.7 billion and expects complete funds might attain $7 billion.

“Our leadership position in the California homeowners insurance marketplace means State Farm General Insurance Company — the State Farm company that provides homeowners insurance in California — insured more people impacted by this disaster than anyone else,” its assertion read.

Tuesday’s post had its origins in a Feb. 4 go to that Zeldin and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler made to the Los Angeles space, where they met with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and Pacific Palisades fire victims, among others.

The go to was prompted by Trump’s criticism of the slow rebuilding course of and by a Trump government order permitting victims of the Los Angeles wildfires to rebuild without having to deal with “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” allowing necessities.

1

2

1. A view of destroyed beachfront properties remaining construction-free after the Palisades fire destroyed them last 12 months in Malibu. 2. Aerial image of the remnants of an oceanfront neighborhood in Malibu taken in December after the large Palisades fire destroyed a whole lot of properties and companies last 12 months. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

At the time of the order, Bass dismissed it as a “meaningless political stunt,” saying the president has no authority over local allowing but might help by rushing up Federal Emergency Management Agency funding.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Assn. industry commerce group, in its response to Trump’s post, continued to level fingers at local authorities. It famous the fires had been the third-worst natural catastrophe in American historical past in phrases of insured losses, at $40 billion.

“Permitting can be a frustrating process, and it can always be improved,” it said in a assertion. “Los Angeles has been approving permits three times faster than it was before the fire. However, permit issuance continues to lag.”

Barger, whose district contains the Eaton fire zone in and around Altadena, said this week that she defended the local allowing course of to Zeldin. But said she also identified complaints about how insurers, and State Farm in explicit, have dealt with claims.

“Many people feel that the insurance industry has let them down, and the number one company that we hear about is State Farm,” she said. “Obviously, Administrator Zeldin met with the president and outlined what I told him.”

Bass, who also spoke on the cellphone with Trump last month, issued a assertion saying she “recently requested that the President intervene with the insurance companies to ensure they pay claims so that survivors can afford to rebuild.”

“I want to thank President Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin for taking action and working alongside us to help survivors get the support they need and deserve,” she said.

A White House official said Friday that the EPA was working to produce the checklist of insurers “as quickly as possible for the president” and the “best way for insurance companies to help is to immediately pay out what they owe so victims can rebuild their lives.”

Construction crews rebuild properties that had been destroyed in the Eaton fire in Altadena on March 20.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“Administrator Zeldin, on behalf of the president, is going to hold insurance companies accountable to the great people of California,” the official said.

The federal authorities has performed a large function in the recovery, including main the particles cleanup and, as of February, approving 12,600 Small Business Administration loans to fire victims totaling $3.2 billion.

However, a 1945 federal law, the McCarran-Ferguson Act, delegates authority to regulate the insurance coverage industry primarily to particular person states.

Joy Chen, government director of Eaton Fire Survivor’s Network, which represents 1000’s of fire victims across Los Angeles, said her group believes the federal authorities has a bigger function to play.

“President Trump has the opportunity to restore accountability to this broken system. Federal agencies have the tools to act,” said Chen, who has been sharply essential of State Farm’s claims practices and how California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has dealt with complaints against the company.

She particularly called for the Federal Trade Commission to look at “deceptive sales practices” that have left Americans underinsured and for the Department of Justice to examine “industrywide claims practices that delay, deny or underpay payments owed to policyholders.”

Lara has defended his treatment of the company, noting regulators opened a probe of State Farm’s claims practices last 12 months.

Martin Grace, a University of Iowa business professor and knowledgeable on insurance coverage regulation, said that apart from the “bully pulpit” Trump exercised in his social media post, the federal authorities’s fingers are largely tied.

“He can browbeat people, and Trump’s good at that. And I think the federal government, at one level, only has that. Now, Congress and the president together could say, ‘Listen, we don’t like what the states are allowing insurers to do, and we’re going to change the regulatory system,’” he said.

Grace famous that there was an insurance coverage industry solvency disaster in the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties that led to a 1990 Congressional report and federal stress for improved state-level regulation, which was undertaken.

“Congress basically said, ‘Get your act together, or we’re going to take [regulation] back.’” And so the states received together and did a a lot better job on that,” he said.

Los Angeles attorney Richard Giller, who represents plaintiffs in lawsuits against insurers, said that the federal authorities might still take steps to improve the market.

Those may embrace establishing a federal reinsurance program that shares natural catastrophe dangers with insurers, or protecting the risk itself equally to how the National Flood Insurance Program works.

“The catastrophe insurance industry in California is incredibly broken and needs some serious repair,” he said.