Fire Victims Tell Official of Woes

More than 350 residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by wildfires last fall urged state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi on Friday to fix a system of homeowners insurance that they said was broken.

At a standing-room-only meeting at Thurgood Marshall Middle School, frustrated property owners told Garamendi that their insurance companies had underinsured them and set home replacement costs far below actual building costs.

“There appears to be very little accountability on the part of these companies,” Michael Trozera told the commissioner. An independent adjuster estimated the cost of replacing his burned-out home in Lake Cuyamaca at $1.17 million, Trozera said, but his insurance policy lists a limit of $322,000. He said he had filed his claim with Allstate six months ago, but the claim has not been settled.

Garamendi urged Trozera and others to file complaints with his department, which he said had encountered similar complaints after the Oakland and Laguna Beach fires.

He said that the problems with insurers typically became evident after about six months.

“That’s when people hit the wall,” he said.

The wildfires destroyed about 2,400 homes in San Diego County. Four law firms have teamed up to handle the lawsuits alleging inadequate insurance.

Karen Reimus, 37, of Scripps Ranch told the commissioner that her neighborhood on Pinecastle Street was one of the hardest hit in the state. All but one of the 46 homes burned to the ground, she said.

Reimus said her family bought their home four months before it burned Oct. 26, 2003, and thought they had purchased enough insurance to cover the replacement cost.

“Unfortunately, we thought replacement meant replacement,” Reimus said.

She said her family was underinsured by $149,000. She called on Garamendi to require warnings in policies.

After the meeting, Garamendi said he was not surprised by the complaints and had heard much the same thing at meetings this week in San Bernardino and near Ramona.

“We’re seeing this pattern of insurance companies that are consistently low-balling a claim,” he said.

Garamendi, who served as commissioner from 1991 to 1995 and returned to the job in January 2003, blamed Charles Quackenbush for what he said was a different attitude during his term in the interim.

Plans that Garamendi had set up after the Northridge earthquake weren’t carried out, he said.

“The department lost its focus, it lost its purpose.”

He promised the crowd that his staff would pursue their complaints and directed them to file “request for assistance” forms.

But one member of his staff said the department had received fewer than 300 such forms so far, and only 75 dealt with the underinsurance issue.

More than 3,600 homes were lost in the 2003 wildfires, and more than 1,900 claims have been filed.

Garamendi will hold another meeting at 6 p.m. Monday at Shadow Mountain Community Church, 2100 Greenfield Drive in El Cajon.