The announcement of California’s Smoke Claims & Remediation Task Force by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is a welcome development. The success of this initiative will depend entirely on who is appointed to serve. After years of mounting complaints from wildfire survivors and consumer advocates, this task force represents a long-overdue attempt to establish uniform, science-based standards for evaluating and cleaning homes impacted by smoke, soot, ash, and toxic wildfire residue. Still, there is a skeptical and growing concern that the insurance industry may attempt to quietly stack the task force with biased or contract-bound experts, limiting its effectiveness and ensuring the continuation of current practices that harm policyholders.
This concern is not hypothetical. We’ve seen how insurers have controlled the narrative around smoke contamination through the experts they retain and the narrow protocols those experts are instructed to follow. As I detailed in yesterday’s blog post, Are California Insurers Playing “See No Evil” When It Comes to Wildfire Smoke, we have witnessed firsthand how insurers restrict testing the full scope toxic particulate intrusion into structures from fire. In a 3,000-square-foot home clearly impacted by wildfire smoke, the insurer’s industrial hygienist was limited to collecting samples, with no authorization to examine additional attics, wall cavities, or HVAC systems, areas known to trap and circulate fine particulates and toxic residues. The limitations placed on these investigations are designed not to find contamination but to create the appearance that no further cleanup is warranted. This is the backdrop against which the new task force must operate.
The Department of Insurance press release outlines that the task force will include public health experts, environmental health professionals, smoke remediation specialists, fire safety experts, and consumer advocates. But the devil is in the details. Who qualifies as a remediation specialist? Will it be an industrial hygienist who has worked independently and written objective reports, or someone whose primary business comes from insurance company contracts and who routinely limits sampling to visible surfaces? Will consumer advocates truly have a voice, or will they be outnumbered by consultants with financial ties to the insurance industry?
We have seen this dynamic before. After major wildfire events like the Camp and Woolsey Fires, insurers routinely sent in consultants who performed visual inspections and simple “sniff tests” instead of meaningful environmental sampling. Some refused to test for critical contaminants like lithium, arsenic, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, despite the fact that modern wildfires now burn vehicles, electronics, treated wood, and batteries, all of which release highly toxic substances. The result is a widespread pattern of underdiagnosed and under-remediated contamination. Homes look clean, but are not safe.
That is why the task force’s makeup matters. To succeed, it must include independent industrial hygienists with no financial conflicts, environmental toxicologists with wildfire-specific expertise, public health professionals from affected counties, and credible consumer advocates who understand the real experiences of fire survivors. If the task force is dominated by individuals who have downplayed contamination or minimized testing in past cases, it will serve as a shield for insurers, not a solution for homeowners.
Commissioner Lara’s office has already taken a step in the right direction with Bulletin 2025-7. This bulletin emphasizes insurers’ obligations to conduct full and fair investigations. But that bulletin must be backed by regulatory teeth. The task force is a tool for developing those enforcement mechanisms, but only if it is structured to represent science, health, and fairness, not the financial interests of carriers. We urge the Department of Insurance to fully disclose all appointees and their affiliations. Transparency is non-negotiable.
The findings and recommendations of California’s Smoke Claims & Remediation Task Force will not be confined to the Golden State. They are poised to ripple across the country. As wildfires increasingly devastate communities from Oregon to Colorado and even as far east as New Jersey, insurers, policymakers, and restoration professionals in other states are watching closely. Whatever standards this task force establishes, whether for sampling protocols, clearance criteria, or the definition of what constitutes “damage,” will almost certainly be cited in litigation, adopted by regulators, and referenced in insurance disputes well beyond California’s borders. In effect, this task force may set the national baseline for what it means to fully and properly investigate smoke contamination. That’s why its credibility, independence, and scientific integrity are not just important, they are imperative.
As attorneys advocating for policyholders every day, we are hopeful but watchful. We know too well the cost of half-measures and co-opted oversight. This task force cannot be allowed to become another performative gesture. It must lead to concrete standards that ensure insurers investigate where the smoke actually went and not just where it’s convenient to look. The health, safety, and property rights of thousands of Californians and beyond depend on it.
Thought For The Day
“The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.”
— Benjamin Disraeli
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