Managing Partner Shant Karnikian was recently quoted in the Daily Journal article “Litigation, regulation, federal scrutiny converge after 2025 fires,” examining how private litigation, state enforcement, and federal scrutiny are converging in the response to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.
The piece situates the State Farm enforcement action, and the homeowner antitrust litigation now drawing a Justice Department statement of interest, within a larger question: whether California’s existing oversight mechanisms are adequate to handle insurer conduct at the scale of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Kabateck LLP represents wildfire survivors across the affected communities in claims against their insurers, including State Farm policyholders. Speaking with the Daily Journal, Karnikian described a coverage crisis that had been building in California well before January 2025. He pointed to longstanding issues around underinsurance, rising construction costs, and how homeowners policies are structured, alongside the operational failures that have surfaced since the fires: understaffed claims departments, reliance on out-of-state adjusters unfamiliar with local rebuilding costs, and inconsistent claim evaluations. “It’s sort of a recipe for disaster across the board on these claims,” Karnikian told the Daily Journal.
The article comes days after the California Department of Insurance formally cited State Farm for 398 violations of state law in its handling of Palisades and Eaton fire claims, the largest wildfire enforcement action this century. Karnikian characterized the move as a meaningful shift toward more aggressive oversight after years in which regulatory responses had been largely advisory.
The bottom line: California regulators have now publicly confirmed what survivors have been reporting for more than a year. For State Farm policyholders affected by the January 2025 fires, the CDI’s findings are not theoretical. They are documented violations that may directly bear on what is owed on individual claims.
For our full breakdown of the 398 violations and what they mean for policyholders, click here.
To read the full Daily Journal article, click here. (Subscription required.)