Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another.Drop by and tell us about your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper. Newcomers may notice that many who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
I’ve been thinking about our friends who have had their lives upended by the Camp Fire — and those who lost family or friends, as well. This is an historic disaster the full extent of which won’t be known for some time.
As a few of you may know, before beginning a simpler life of making quilts, I spent nine years as a paralegal in a large DC law firm, many of those years specializing in insurance litigation. After that, I was a consultant working in insurance reconstruction and analysis for attorneys. I have read and picked apart thousands of insurance policies for companies in many industries (even public utilities) and have even been deposed as an expert on London insurance language.
I must say up front, I am not an attorney and please don’t construe any of this as legal advice. I can’t give you that. And the type of insurance I mostly dealt with was general liability insurance, not personal lines. That being said, if you lost your home, property, or the life of someone near to you, you owe it to yourself to give notice to your insurer(s) right away. Even if your records were lost, let your agent know, or failing that, call the carrier. They will have your contract on file. Get a copy and read it. When you bought insurance, you bought a series of promises to make you whole in case of disaster. Know what they are.
People who have a business or a lot of property might also, in addition to their property insurance, have an umbrella liability policy. It will be broader in coverage than any policy that sits beneath it and may even drop down to be primary insurance in cases where there is no applicable primary insurance in place. If you have one of these, you will definitely want to read it, especially if you were renting property to anyone that was affected by the fire.
It looks like this catastrophe may possibly have had its origin in some antiquated, sparking electrical lines. If that is the case, the utility company will be involved in litigation for years to come. They will have general liability insurance that insures them against claims from third parties whose property or persons may have been unintentially damaged or injured by the operations of their business. This coverage will also provide for the defense (i.e. lawyer’s fees) of defending lawsuits from the people who suffered losses. The utility will, in all probability, be expecting to be sued. By a lot of people, maybe a class action. The defense costs of these lawsuits may even be covered in addition to the limits of the general liability policies. Yes, policies, plural — there will be layers of excess coverage over any primary policies. Which means litigation will be even more complex, possibly with insurers pointing at each other. Also, the insurers will have reinsurance, probably through London. So they may become plaintiffs in their own right. It’s going to be quite a tangle of interests with a lot of money at stake.
The main thing is that people be made whole again, to the extent possible, as quickly as possible. I hope and pray the government will step in to help — the State of California if not the Feds. My heart goes out to everyone who suffered and who is suffering from this catastrophe.
Please come in, share your day, your weekend plans, your menus. Fire survivors, please check in and let us know how you are doing! This is is an open thread.