Managing Partner Shant Karnikian, Of Counsel Michael Childress, and David Furtado of Furtado Law PC co-authored a new article examining how insurers are unlawfully terminating Additional Living Expense (ALE) benefits for wildfire policyholders in violation of California Insurance Code section 2060.
The piece breaks down how carriers are conditioning ALE payments on rebuild progress, a requirement that appears nowhere in the statute. Section 2060 guarantees policyholders at least 24 months of ALE coverage following a declared state of emergency, with extensions available when delays are outside the insured’s control.
The authors call on the California Department of Insurance to open a targeted market conduct examination into how carriers are handling ALE claims arising from the Eaton and Palisades fires and to enforce the statute as the Legislature wrote it.