Smoke & Mirrors
Smoke & Mirrors is an investigative podcast series by Consumer Watchdog that exposes the deceptions of the home insurance industry and empowers wildfire survivors to take back what they are owed. Reporter Justin Kloczko talks to people affected by the Los Angeles wildfires this year, and he digs into court records to show how they're being deceived by large companies. This series includes narrative storytelling, interviews, and court records.
Episodes
A rare glimpse into the widespread, but hidden practice of insurers quietly altering wildfire home cleanup estimates before presenting final payouts to policyholders. In many cases, policyholders only see the final, reduced version without knowing about insurance company redlines. But by mere accident, policyholders are finding out what’s happening behind the scenes. We explore some new legislative solutions to the troubling practi...
We explore a recent investigative story by the New York Times about how industry-favored loopholes crafted behind closed doors at the California Department of Insurance have undermined fire recovery, and how Los Angeles fire survivors are now calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to ask Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to resign.
Guests:
Branislav Kecman, Altadena fire survivor
Jill Spivack, Pacific Palisades, fire sur...
In this episode we examine how technology has increasingly taken over every aspect of our home insurance policies, from the algorithm that decides how much insurance we need when we sign up, to the algorithm that determines what it'll cost to rebuild after a disaster, to the ones that set your fire risk score and decide how much companies get to charge for future disasters. The data that feeds this technology is often incorrec...
There are many planets in the insurance claims galaxy. Once you file a claim, in come industrial hygienists to perform testing, and remediation companies to do clean up. Many only work for insurance companies. There are high-end consultants who are brought in and downplay the damage, and contractors that use fancy language to dress up all the work they don’t do. But too often, they are instruments to underpay and under clean homes....
Smoke damage has become a major issue for wildfire victims of the Eaton and Palisades fires. In this episode, we go present a tip guide for policyholders on getting smoke damage claims paid from those who know best: folks who have gone through it. You’ll be hearing from fire survivors who have fought and won, public adjusters who seek to get claims paid on behalf of policyholders, attorneys who litigate in court against insurance c...
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