County seeks victim restitution that state’s earlier lawsuit cannot provide
Los Angeles County sued State Farm on Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging that the insurer’s handling of insurance claims following the 2025 wildfires violated California’s unfair competition laws and left policyholders without benefits they were owed.
The lawsuit targets State Farm’s practices in processing claims from the Pacific Palisades and Altadena fires. State Farm is California’s largest private insurer, according to the complaint.
The county’s complaint lays out specific allegations. State Farm assigned multiple adjusters to people seeking payments, the lawsuit said, failed to issue payments to cover living expenses after the fires, made misrepresentations to discourage policyholders from pursuing claims, and did not properly handle claims of smoke damage in homes left standing.
“Wildfire survivors have spent far too long fighting to receive the benefits they paid for and counted on,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said at a downtown press conference. Barger, a Republican, represents a district that includes Altadena.
Representatives for State Farm did not immediately return a request for comment. The insurer has said that more than $6 million in claims has been paid out following the disaster and expects that number to eventually top $7 million.
The county’s action follows a separate state lawsuit filed earlier this year. California is seeking millions of dollars in damages and the power to suspend State Farm’s license to operate in the state for up to a year.
The county’s lawsuit seeks restitution for victims, which the state’s action cannot pursue, assistant county counsel Scott Kuhn said.
County lawyers said State Farm did not cooperate with the investigation, which began last year.
The “failure to pay benefits due under their policies” has “prolonged the catastrophe” for victims of the fires, the lawsuit said.