A proposed California bill could force insurers to pay homeowners 100% of the coverage for belongings inside destroyed homes, allowing policyholders to forgo the itemization practice.
The bill, officially known as the Eliminate “The List” Act, would apply to homes destroyed in natural disasters, according to the bill’s sponsor, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, and the bill’s author, State Senator Ben Allen.
“Californians who have lost all they call home should not be subject to the pain compounded by insufficient coverage or missed deadlines. Additionally, the Eliminate ‘The List’ Act modernizes our data collection protocols to provide us with better climate insight that will guide us to a more insurable future,” Allen said in a statement.
Allen’s district includes the Pacific Palisades burn area.
If passed, the bill would make California the only state in the country to require such payouts from insurance companies. Similar legislation, proposed in Oregon and Colorado after devasting wildfires, would have made insurance companies pay 70 and 65 percent of the coverage limit without an inventory, according to the New York Times.
The proposed bill is part of a legislative package that includes 10 proposals to address wildfire mitigation and recovery, including protecting consumers from non-renewables and maximizing insurance payouts.
The California legislature passed a law in 2020 requiring insurers to pay out 30% of a policy’s dwelling limit without needing to itemize when the family faces a total loss in an area when a state of emergency is declared.
