smoke & mirrors
check out the podcast series I produced investigating the wildfire insurance industry.
Sorry for not posting in a while. AI has stolen all of my thoughts, which are being held in a data center somewhere beautiful in order to scale digital services across the economy, attract global investment, and provide mission-critical infrastructure for sustainably-aligned energy strategies that will definitely, um…benefit us all.
Anyway, since it’s the one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles fires that destroyed the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, I thought I’d share an investigative podcast series I recently wrote and produced for Consumer Watchdog called Smoke & Mirrors. It examines how large insurance companies underpay wildfire survivors through a shadow industry of subcontractors and black box technology.
In examining the supposed testers and cleaners of smoke damaged homes, we found out that many of them are actually corporate consultants who primarily work for large insurance companies. One popular corporate consultant admitted under oath that he relied on just visual inspection, his nose, and minimal tape samples to recommend to an insurer that no major cleaning was needed. The same consultant in another case cited toxins from “sea spray” as a potential contributing factor to toxins present in an Altadena home, which is literally about 25 miles away from the coast. We also offer a tip guide on how to handle insurance if your home is affected by the fires.
Check it out below, as well as wherever you listen to podcasts.
This one is for California.