Last spring, victims of the Los Angeles wildfires complained loudly and en masse over how State Farm General was handling their insurance claims, especially for smoke damage.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara urged them to lodge formal complaints with the department.

“That’s how we track and how we monitor, and we make sure that we follow through … make sure that those claims are being addressed,” he told several hundred fire victims in a Zoom forum in May.

Nearly a year later, however, many homeowners and their representatives say the promise was hollow. They voice mounting frustration over how the California Department of Insurance investigated their complaints about State Farm.

More than a dozen homeowners and their representatives told The Times that the department did little to resolve a wide range of complaints, or prevent new problems, in State Farm’s handling of their claims.

“Seventy percent of insured Eaton and Palisades fire survivors are facing delays and denials that are impeding their recovery,” said Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, citing a survey by the nonprofit Department of Angels. “That is evidence of the failure of this department to do its job.”

Policyholders shared complaints lodged against State Farm over denials to pay for the cleanup of fire toxins, rebuild estimates well below actual construction costs and delayed checks for living expenses. To the state they cited frequent turnover in adjusters and demands to sign legal papers agreeing to forego future reimbursement for personal items without itemized receipts.

Now, they said, State Farm is cutting off prepaid rentals and leases for fire victims who aren’t close to returning home.

Most of the fire victims said they were left in the dark about their cases, and were told to stop trying to communicate with their complaint handlers. Some said their cases were closed before their insurance disputes were settled.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s an actual, legitimate organization that’s meant to protect consumers,” said Len Kendall, who lost his home to the Pacific Palisades fire.

Kendall initially complained to the state about State Farm in July, citing delays in handling his total loss claim, dealing with multiple adjusters and struggles to get reimbursed for living expenses. Later he said he was told stop communicating with the state and to send his records “directly and solely” to State Farm.

“We’re told that they’re tracking information and speaking to the insurers, but we have no idea what is happening,” Kendall said. “ When it comes to the [insurance department], we’re all totally in the dark.”

A spokesperson for State Farm declined to address complaints from L.A. fire victims.

A representative for the state insurance department declined to comment on its handling of complaints against State Farm.

The agency did say it had “recovered” more than $210 million for fire victims “through its intervention and aggressive advocacy on these complaints.”

“We do our best to approach every wildfire survivor with empathy and understanding,” Michael Soller, spokesman for the insurance department, said late Wednesday. “Our goal is helping people recover fully, fairly, and quickly. We hold ourselves to the highest standards.”

He encouraged those with insurance disputes to contact the department. “We will do our best to expedite their claims,” he said.

The mistrust between fire victims and the department has been deepened by newly released records showing the department disciplined one its senior complaint handlers after she criticized State Farm over its claims handling, according to personnel records reviewed by The Times.

In a July letter to a State Farm case manager, Coleen Vandepas — a 32-year-veteran of the department who had previously been commended for her work on behalf of policyholders — accused the insurer of “shoddy” and “shameful” handling of an L.A. fire claim, including claiming it did not have test results within the insurer’s possession. She demanded the company apologize to its policyholder. In another policyholder’s case, she said State Farm engaged in a “pattern and practice” of delay.

Records show that days later, a State Farm lawyer called a top-level executive at the insurance department to complain about Vandepas’ statements.

Vandepas’ State Farm caseload was subsequently reassigned and she was docked 10% of her pay, according to personnel records. Her supervisors said Vandepas had made “accusatory” and “improper” remarks about State Farm, and cited a LinkedIn post State Farm had called attention to, in which she characterized insurance company threats to leave California as “wailing” by companies that wanted to “make huge amounts off the backs of the citizens of California.”

A state personnel board law judge reviewing the discipline called Vandepas’ remarks “rude and disparaging” and the full board this month rejected her appeal. A new appeal has been filed with the California Public Employee Relations Board, noting Vandepas was also protected as a union steward and was in part punished for raising internal workload issues.

The workplace action has angered advocates for wildfire victims.

“This sends a message to every single person who works at [the California Department of Insurance]: ‘You may be next,” said Chen, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles.

Through its corporate media office in Illinois, State Farm declined to comment on the sanctions against Vandepas.

“We are not a party to the case in question,” the Illinois-based insurer said in a statement. “We have ongoing relationships with state regulators so we can best meet the needs of our customers.”

Investigations into State Farm

State Farm was in the midst of dropping some 72,000 policies in California, and seeking a $1.3-billion rate hike, when the Jan. 7, 2025, firestorm ravaged Los Angeles. The disaster killed 31, destroyed more than 16,000 structures, and left many others unable to return to their homes. As of November, the insurance department reported more than 42,000 home and commercial insurance claims.

By far, the largest share of those claims are with State Farm General, the California subsidiary of State Farm Mutual. A survey of about 2,300 five victims by the Department of Angels noted State Farm policyholders reported higher rates of claim denials, low estimates and other complaints than customers of other insurers.

Los Angeles County in November opened its own investigation into State Farm’s claims handling, demanding the insurer turn over reams of information, including company policy guides, training materials for handling fire and smoke claims, among other documents.

In June, Lara launched what he called an expedited market conduct exam of State Farm. The findings have yet to be released.

Lara rejected pressure from wildfire victim advocates to delay an interim 17% emergency hike until State Farm’s claims practices could be examined. He said they would be taken up in the full rate review. There has been no public hearings on the full hike. The case could be settled by the end of the month, state lawyers told a judge this week.

The insurance giant has a history of pushing strongly against regulators.

The company has refused to provide financial records sought by California actuaries attempting to judge the merit of its pending rate hike, including plans to drop another 11,000 policies, according to public rate filing records obtained by The Times.

The insurance department tracks complaints by disaster, as well as by insurer, but has rejected public record requests for that data. Its consumer complaint group has just 34 employees and hasn’t changed staffing levels despite the surge in wildfire claims in 2025, according to California payroll records.

Internal agency emails show a State Farm executive in May 2025 told Lara the insurer had received less than 310 policyholder complaints among 10,359 Los Angeles fire claims at the time. (Most of the cases reviewed by The Times were filed later.)

“SFG is not an outlier with respect to the number of complaints received in relation to the number of claims from the January 2025 wildfires,” State Farm General CEO Dan Krause wrote to Lara.

Insurance companies have 21 days to respond when a complaint is filed, and then state compliance officers can review the record for adherence with insurance law. They cannot make a determination of fault, or the size of an award. In a process kept confidential, they can challenge insurers with questions, asking them to explain their decisions. If they see violations, they cannot take action against an insurer. And they cannot tell the policyholder.

The insurance department contends the complaint process has resulted in the reversal of claim denials, increased payouts and agreements in individual cases to test for the toxic residues of wildfire smoke.

But interviews and records reviewed by The Times revealed inconsistencies in how wildfire disaster complaints were handled.

Some compliance officers told policyholders to stop sharing correspondence with their insurance companies or adjusters, saying they would read the claim files for themselves. Policyholders frustrated by the silence sought to file new complaints or have their cases reassigned, only to be refused.

After five months of sending protests about a “non-responsive” compliance officer, one fire victim was told by a bureau supervisor that she had two other alternatives to resolve her insurance dispute: seek a lawyer or file a lawsuit.

Three officers attempted to close policyholder cases even though the insurance claim remained in dispute. In one instance, a compliance officer referenced the wrong insurance company and the wrong issue being contested, letters shared with The Times show.

Andrew Wessels said State Farm prematurely closed this case after he challenged the insurers initial refusal to address toxic residues in his house left standing among the rubble of the Eaton fire, or its failure to pay living expenses.

For months, Wessels repeatedly wrote to alert his compliance officer that State Farm was making false claims. The state reviewer wrote back once to acknowledge receipt of further complaints he would add to the case file. Then in October the case officer tried to close the still-disputed State Farm claim, calling it “in stable condition.”

“The Department would find its task of regulating the insurance industry much more difficult without the help of consumers like you,” the closure letter said.

Wessels protested and his case was reopened. He continues to wrestle with State Farm over safety tests, delayed living expenses and ever-changing adjusters. He emails updates to his state insurance compliance officer.

“I just periodically send an email into oblivion, basically,” he said.

WASHINGTON — As progressives seek to place a new tax on billionaires on California’s November ballot, a Republican congressman is moving in the opposite direction — proposing federal legislation that would block states from taxing the assets of former residents.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin), who faces a tough re-election challenge under California’s redrawn congressional maps, says he will introduce the “Keep Jobs in California Act of 2026” on Friday. The measure would prohibit any state from levying taxes retroactively on individuals who no longer live there.

The proposed legislation adds another layer to what has already been a fiery debate over California’s approach to taxing the ultra-wealthy. It has created divisions among Democrats and has placed Los Angeles at the center of a broader political fight, with Bernie Sanders set to hold a rally on Wednesday night in support of the wealth tax.

Kiley said he drafted the bill in reaction to reports that several of California’s most prominent billionaires — including Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin — are planning to leave the state in anticipation of the wealth tax being enacted.

“California’s proposed wealth tax is an unprecedented attempt to chase down people who have already left as a result of the state’s poor policies,” Kiley said in a statement Wednesday. “Many of our state’s leading job creators are leaving preemptively.”

Kiley said it would be “fundamentally unfair” to retroactively impose taxes on former residents.

“California already has the highest income tax of any state in the country, the highest gas tax, the highest overall tax burden,” Kiley said in a House floor speech earlier this month. “But a wealth tax is something unique because a wealth tax is not merely the taxation of earned income, it is the confiscation of assets.”

The fate of Kiley’s proposal is just as uncertain as his future in Congress. His 5th Congressional District, which hugs the Nevada border, has been sliced up into six districts under California’s voter-approved Proposition 50, and he has not yet picked one to run in for re-election.

The Billionaire Tax Act, which backers are pushing to get on the November ballot, would charge California’s 200-plus billionaires a onetime 5% tax on their net worth in order to backfill billions of dollars in Republican-led cuts to federal healthcare funding for middle-class and low-income residents. It is being proposed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West.

In his floor speech, Kiley worried that the tax, if approved, could cause the state’s economy to collapse.

“What’s especially threatening about this is that our state’s tax structure is essentially a house of cards,” Kiley said. “You have a system that is incredibly volatile, where top 1% of earners account for 50% of the tax revenue.”

But supporters of the wealth tax argue the measure is one of the few ways that can help the state seek new revenue as it faces economic uncertainty.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, is urging Californians to back the measure, which he says would “provide the necessary funding to prevent more than 3 million working-class Californians from losing the healthcare they currently have — and would help prevent the closures of California hospitals and emergency rooms.”

“It should be common sense that the billionaires pay just slightly more so that entire communities can preserve access to life-saving medical care,” Sanders said in a statement earlier this month. “Our country needs access to hospitals and emergency rooms, not more tax breaks for billionaires.”

Other Democrats are not so sure.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is eyeing a presidential bid in 2028, has opposed the measure. He has warned a state-by-state approach to taxing the wealthy could stifle innovation and entrepreneurship.

Some of he wealthiest people in the world are also taking steps to defeat the measure.

Brin is donating $20 million to a California political drive to prevent the wealth tax from becoming law, according to a disclosure reviewed by the New York Times. Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and the chairman of Palantir, has also donated millions to a committee working to defeat the proposed measure, the New York Times reported.

When young adult author Courtney Summers got the rights back to her backlisted titles in 2024, she initially wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Summers’ novels, the bulk of which enjoyed peak popularity in the 2010s, had by then faded into the periphery — despite a film adaptation of her 2012 zombie thriller “This Is Not a Test,” which is slated to be released in theaters Feb. 20. But the Canadian author felt they still had potential.

That’s how she wound up pitching a “Taylor’s Version”-style rerelease of her backlist to a handful of desired publishers. Under this model, Summers would publish lightly revised versions of her old books — “make the background vocals stronger and the guitar richer,” so to speak — in the hopes of reanimating her work and reaching a new generation of readers.

Her unorthodox plan had one fledgling publisher’s name all over it — Bindery Books.

Co-founded by book marketing veteran Matt Kaye and former Becker&mayer! editor Meghan Harvey, Bindery Books is a publishing startup and membership platform that integrates influencer marketing into the book publication process. Unlike traditional publishing houses, Bindery operates via a handful of influencer-led imprints, designed to better serve reader interest and take the burden of book promotion off under-resourced authors.

“Bookish creators wanted to figure out how to build a career doing what they love. Authors want to reach an audience,” Kaye said. So he and Harvey decided to play matchmaker.

Bindery currently houses 12 imprints helmed by book influencers, or as Kaye called them, “tastemakers.” Oftentimes, these atypical acquiring editors grew their online book communities for several years before landing at Bindery.

Kathryn Budig, head of the speculative fiction imprint the Inky Phoenix, started her online book club of the same name in 2020. She published her first title with Bindery in 2024.

When Bindery’s acquisitions director Shira Schindel brought her Summers’ backlog last year, Budig first pulled “This Is Not a Test,” the most speculative of the bunch, and was immediately hooked.

“I read it, I went back to Shira and was like, ‘Give it to me. Mine. Mine,’” she said.

Since then, Budig has labored tirelessly to stoke enthusiasm for Summers’ book among her Inky Phoenix community members. Her genuine pride in Summers’ work, and eagerness for it to succeed, is tangible in every post and promotional video — just like Kaye and Harvey imagined.

The trust between Summers and Budig was immediate, the latter said: “We started a dev[elopmental] edit before we even inked the papers.”

It was a completely different publishing experience than Summers was used to, she said. Her previous publishers had been either too overworked or unbothered to treat her and her work with the respect she felt she deserved.

Under Budig’s wing, Summers said she was cared for and included in editorial decision-making, in part thanks to a project manager — a role typically not seen at legacy publishing houses. The author added that for the first time in the 14 years after its publication, “This Is Not a Test” is a Kids Indie Next pick.

For the Bindery team to make that happen, she said, “they pulled levers I can’t imagine would be possible in a more traditional model.”

Few of Bindery’s authors have Summers’ high profile or sizable backlog. Instead, nearly all of its titles are debuts, and about a third of its authors are unagented, Kaye said. Last year, several Bindery books hit bestseller and year-end lists.

Kaye attributed Bindery’s success to its nontraditional model, which by leveraging so-called “bookfluencer” reach integrates reader sentiment into the publication process rather than attempting to anticipate it — as many publishing houses still do.

“Part of what we’re trying to do is have that immediacy, like, you’re not many, many steps removed from the reader,” he said. “You’re actually in conversation with them every day.”

Nina Haines, the tastemaker behind Bindery’s Sapph-Lit imprint, said that she solicited member input on the imprint’s prospective debut titles before she’d even read the manuscripts. The synopsis that won by a landslide was Kim Narby’s “Saturn Returning,” expected in May.

Given traditional publishing has historically sidelined queer authors and refused them marketing budgets, Haines said she hopes to be “that person that gets it and fights for it.”

Jananie Velu, who heads Bindery’s Boundless Press imprint, has similarly aimed to enfranchise underrepresented authors — in her case, authors of color — whom she felt the publishers she formerly worked for never truly gave a chance.

“I spent years butting my head against the wall, like, ‘Why can’t I get more budget for this author?’” Velu said, adding that her past employers heavily devalued the influence of BookTok and “bookfluencing” on publishing.

“So the idea that I would get to choose the books and really be a champion for those books from day one, I felt was just really exciting,” she said.

Jane Friedman, a book industry veteran and author of “The Bottom Line” publishing industry newsletter, views the Bindery model as an effective “middle ground” between traditional book marketing and online influencing.

While the analyst said she was unsure of how scalable it is, she said the publisher’s tastemaker strategy “reads as very Gen Z and maybe an indicator of where the industry needs to go to stay fresh and relevant.”

Bindery is not yet profitable, Harvey said. But that’s on the horizon.

In the meantime, she said, the startup plans to grow — “slowly … so that every author’s needs are taken care of” — and keep pinpointing publishing “blind spots.”

“We as an industry tend to go for the surest bets,” Harvey said.

“But it’s very interesting to me to think about how you could find these really engaged communities around either underexposed or emerging genre interests, [where] readers are there but publishers aren’t.”