Denied or Lowballed on Your Palisades Fire Insurance Claim? We Fight Back.
KBK Lawyers represents Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Topanga, Brentwood, and Calabasas homeowners against insurance carriers that denied claims, underpaid losses, or cut off Additional Living Expense after the January 2025 Palisades Fire. Free, confidential case review. No fee unless we recover money for you.
Holding Insurance Companies Accountable
$1.8 million bad-faith recovery for a Woolsey Fire homeowner — after the carrier had already paid the insured over $1 million on the same claim. That is the kind of recovery the law allows when a California insurance carrier acts in bad faith. (Attorney Advertising. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.)
Speak With Our Experienced Team
Why Carriers Are Underpaying Palisades Fire Claims
Homeowners in Palisades, Malibu, and Topanga often face the same insurance underpayment tactics seen in other wildfire claims, along with several issues unique to these communities:
Payment of Actual Cash Value (ACV) when the policy provides for Replacement Cost Value (RCV).
Contents valuations that fail to account for the true cost of furnishings, artwork, collectibles, and other high-value personal property.
Smoke and ash damage improperly dismissed as “cosmetic.”
Additional Living Expenses (ALE) terminated long before the home can reasonably be rebuilt.
Code-upgrade coverage overlooked or improperly denied.
FAIR Plan limitations applied where broader coverage should be available.
Disputes over “comparable housing” in which the insurer offers relocation benefits that do not reflect local housing costs.
An experienced California insurance bad-faith attorney who has handled wildfire claims at scale understands these tactics and knows how to challenge them effectively.
The LADWP Case and the Insurance Case — One Firm Handles Both
Many Palisades Fire survivors have two potential cases running together. The first is the insurance bad-faith case against the carrier. The second is the utility case against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for water-supply and equipment failures that contributed to the fire. KBK Lawyers handles both cases inside the same firm, so the discovery, the experts, and the timeline are coordinated rather than fragmented across two firms.
We Pursue Substantial Insurance Recoveries
KBK Lawyers focuses on California wildfire insurance disputes involving substantial unpaid policy benefits — typically cases where at least $200,000 in coverage remains in dispute. Our 20% contingency fee is among the lowest in the California plaintiffs’ bar for this kind of work.
What KBK Lawyers Has Recovered
$250M+
Northridge earthquake insurance bad-faith claims
$9M+
Station Fire smoke-damage class settlement for over 1,000 policyholders
$1.8M+
Woolsey Fire bad-faith recovery after carrier had already paid seven figures
$1.7M+
in a water-damage bad-faith case
Our founding partner, Brian Kabateck, is a past President of Consumer Attorneys of California and a past President of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and he has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times and on national news on California insurance and consumer cases.
What We Recover for Palisades Fire Survivors
Depending on the circumstances of your claim, you may be entitled to recover:
The full Replacement Cost Value of your home, rather than a depreciated Actual Cash Value payment.
Code-upgrade coverage necessary to rebuild in compliance with current California Building Code requirements.
Full Additional Living Expenses throughout the rebuilding process, including the minimum protections provided under California Insurance Code section 2051.5.
Smoke, soot, and ash remediation at the actual cost required to restore the property.
Personal property and contents losses at full Replacement Cost Value.
Bad-faith damages when an insurer unreasonably delays, denies, or underpays a valid claim.
Statutory penalties available under the California Insurance Code.
Punitive damages in cases involving malicious, fraudulent, or oppressive conduct by the insurance carrier.
Deadlines
Wildfire-related policies must give at least two years for suit. LADWP claims as a public entity require a written government claim within six months of the loss — which means the Palisades Fire LADWP deadline ran July 7, 2025, unless statutory exceptions apply. We map every deadline at the first call.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it cost to have my case reviewed?
Nothing. The first consultation is free and confidential. If we take the case, we work on a 20% contingency fee — among the lowest in the California plaintiffs’ bar for this kind of work.
My carrier already paid me something. Do I still have a case?
Often, yes. Partial payment does not end the claim. Bring the carrier’s payment letters to a free consultation.
Will my Palisades Fire case settle or go to trial?
Most mass wildfire cases settle as part of a coordinated resolution. We prepare every case for trial regardless of how the broader litigation unfolds.
Attorney Advertising. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.