Hawaii

Hawaii’s top court hears insurance industry claims on $4B wildfire settlement

Published

1 year ago

February 7, 2025

Hawaii’s top court hears insurance industry claims on B wildfire settlement

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The Hawaii Supreme Court heard a $4 billion argument Thursday over the Maui wildfire lawsuits.

The court faces a decision that could kill the so-called “global” settlement between victims, Hawaii Electric, the state, Kamehameha Schools and other entities.

The unusual arguments pitted supporters of the settlement, including those responsible for the damage, against the insurance industry.

The key issue was whether insurance companies should have been included in the settlement for the $3 billion they say they are paying out in property damage claims.

Insurance industry attorney Adam Romney pointed out that the industry has already paid out more than the $1.9 billion Hawaiian Electric has committed to the settlement.

“We will have to pay more than the people who actually caused the damage and that is fundamentally inequitable,” he said. “Ultimately we didn’t start the fire. We’re the people who start paying moneys immediately when the claims start coming in.”

Before the settlement, the insurers filed their own lawsuit against many of the same defendants.

So plaintiffs’ attorney Jesse Creed accused the insurers of a money grab.

“The insurers want a bigger piece of the pie and they want the leverage they can exploit out of a direct claim,” he said.

The plaintiffs as well as attorneys for the defendants are also hoping the courts will block the insurers from filing their own lawsuits which would upend the settlement.

An attorney for the defendants, Ginger Anders, says $4 billion was all they could afford.

“The mediator did find that this was the most that the defendants could reasonably be expected to pay,” she said.

Also participating Thursday was attorney Terrance Revere, who expects to represent another batch of defendants in a class action case, alongside victims who have hired attorneys and filed individual lawsuits.

“We don’t want our county to go bankrupt. We don’t want to take huge amounts from the biggest charity in the state,” he said. “We are trying to do something that is reasonable.”

Victims aren’t supposed to double dip, or get money from both the settlement and their insurance company for the same damages. That’s why insurers say they are entitled to money from the settlement.

But Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald and other justices asked whether the law provides a process to reimburse insurers after the victims are paid.

“You file a claim for a lien or assert a claim for a lien, and then the court is supposed to decide whether to recognize that claim or not,” Recktenwald said.

Romney responded that the insurers did not want to be in the position of filing claims against their own clients and that a global settlement, including insurers, is the right answer.

“We welcome settlement of this case,” Romney said. “We would like there to be a settlement that helps everybody, that resolves all claims.”

The chief justice promised a ruling as soon as possible. Both sides expressed confidence they had carried the day.

“I’m very confident,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Cynthia Wong. “I’m very confident in our Hawaii Supreme Court.”

Creed agreed, “I’m confident not only based on the argument, but on the law, we are right on the law.”

Mark Grotefeld spoke for the insurers outside the courts chambers.

“We feel very good about our chances here,” he said.

Even if the Supreme Court does rule quickly in favor of the plaintiffs, that will not immediately release money to the victims.

Attorneys say there will be a process in Maui Circuit Court that will determine if everyone is getting the right amount of money, including the insurance companies.

Meanwhile, the attorneys said there may still be time for a new agreement.

Both sides say they are still willing to work out a new deal.

The industry says it was given a cold shoulder by negotiators for victims and defendants and the state, during mediation that led to the $4 billion deal.

“Did we meaningfully participate?” Romney told the court. “We were present. We were present, but we really didn’t have a say in what happened.”

He said insurers were offered some money in the mediation, but not enough.

“They walked in and said here is the number. We are not going to tell you how much of the number you get,” Romney said. “That was not an acceptable proposal for large client, large insurance companies that have to say, ‘What does that mean for all future cases for all future wildfire settlements?’”

The dispute has been delayed the settlement by five months as insurers pursued their own lawsuits against the electric company and other defendants, including the county.

The justices’ questions didn’t indicate either side was a clear winner, so to avoid losing and a potential precedent that could harm either side for the future, both sides may try to rewrite the settlement.

“We want to sit at the table with the defendants, with the lawyers for the individuals and come to a proper resolution that would be well within the defendants ability to pay,” Grotefeld said. “We aren’t looking to bankrupt everybody.”

Plaitiffs attorneys say they are also willing to talk.

“We haven’t stopped the process of mediation. We’re still always trying to discuss settlement,” Wong said, “But if we can’t settle, the Hawaii Supreme Court will allow us to move forward with finality.”

With uncertainty about how long the court may take to rule, the negotiations could accelerate to try and finish before a ruling. If the court rules for the insurers, all negotiations would begin from nearly the beginning.

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Hawaii

Flames engulf van on H-1 Freeway near Punchbowl

Published

2 hours ago

May 9, 2026

Press Room

Flames engulf van on H-1 Freeway near Punchbowl

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Firefighters responded to a vehicle fire on the H-1 Freeway late Friday night.

The Honolulu Fire Department said the fire was reported around 10:40 p.m. on the H-1 eastbound, after the Kinau Street exit.

Witnesses told Hawaii News Now flames rose higher than the concrete barrier separating the eastbound and westbound lanes.

One unit with four personnel responded and quickly brought the fire under control.

The fire was extinguished, and the responding unit was cleared from the scene by 11:22 p.m.

No other details were immediately available.

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Hawaii

Volcano Watch: Think Hawaii has many volcanoes? Think again, says El Salvador – West Hawaii Today

Published

14 hours ago

May 9, 2026

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Volcano Watch: Think Hawaii has many volcanoes? Think again, says El Salvador – West Hawaii Today

This past March, a team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists — two of whom travelled from Hawaii — visited El Salvador in Central America for volcanological field studies and a workshop on lava flow hazards. Exchanges like this help to improve awareness of volcanic hazards in other countries, and they enable the USGS to better understand volcanoes in our own backyard.

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, sitting on the Pacific coast and measuring slightly larger than all the Hawaiian Islands combined.

However, the eight main Hawaiian Islands are comprised of only 15 volcanoes above sea level; El Salvador, on the other hand, has over 200! And that’s with a population of about 6 million people, about four times as many as Hawaii.

There are numerous volcanoes in El Salvador because it sits along the Central American volcanic arc, rather than atop a hotspot like Hawaii. Volcanic arcs form where an oceanic tectonic plate subducts beneath either a continental plate or another oceanic one; the ocean crust triggers melting as it dips into the Earth’s mantle, creating magma that rises to the surface through the overlying plate. Though El Salvador has five larger volcanoes with historical eruptions, numerous fault lines allow magma from the subduction zone to emerge just about anywhere. This has resulted in hundreds of smaller volcanoes, most of which have erupted only once.

Volcano monitoring in El Salvador is handled by the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (MARN). In addition to tracking the weather and other natural hazards, a small team of volcanologists works to study the geological and geophysical dynamics of the country’s volcanoes, while maintaining a watchful eye for signs of unrest. The stratovolcanoes of Santa Ana and San Miguel have both erupted in the past 25 years, but even more destructive events have occurred in the not-too-distant past: San Salvador volcano sent a lava flow into presently developed areas in 1917, and Ilopango caldera had a regionally devastating eruption in the year 431.

USGS, through its Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP), has maintained a collaborative relationship with MARN for decades. Co-funded by the U.S. Department of State, VDAP has supported numerous technical investigations and monitoring projects at volcanoes in developing countries around the world. Meanwhile, many MARN volcanologists have even studied in the United States as part of the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes (CSAV) course held every summer in Hawaii and Washington state.

In recent years, VDAP’s relationships in El Salvador have focused on geologic projects to describe the eruptive history and hazards of Santa Ana volcano and a broader effort to assemble a national “volcano atlas,” which will include locations, compositions, and — hopefully — approximate ages for the more than 200 volcanic vents in the country. Such knowledge will enable more accurate understanding and delineation of hazards associated with their eruptions, which are both explosive (ash-producing) and effusive (lava flow-producing).

The field work in March served both projects. Dozens of samples were collected to correlate and date eruptive deposits across Santa Ana, including three sediment cores from coastal mangroves and a montane bog that may contain distant ashfall from the volcano. Reconnaissance visits were also made to several monogenetic (single-eruption) vents scattered around western El Salvador to assess their genesis and ages.

Finally, VDAP sponsored a weeklong workshop on lava flow hazards and monitoring for MARN staff and partner agencies. Since El Salvador’s last lava flow erupted in 1917, none of the current team have responded to such an event. USGS scientists from the Hawaiian, Cascades, and Alaska Volcano Observatories discussed their experiences and best practices developed during recent eruptions at Kilauea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii, as well as Great Sitkin and Pavlof in Alaska.

While the USGS scientists learned plenty about volcanism in El Salvador during this trip, it also provided key insights to bring home to our own volcanoes. Explosive eruptions in Hawaii are relatively rare, but the ability to correctly interpret their deposits is critical to understanding potential future hazards. Additionally, the more distributed nature of volcanoes in El Salvador has led to interesting interactions between lava flows and their more-weathered depositional environments, not unlike some of Hawaii’s older volcanoes: Hualalai, Mauna Kea, and Haleakala. We thank MARN for the opportunity to visit and study their country’s volcanoes.

Volcano
activity updates

Kilauea has been erupting episodically within the summit caldera since Dec. 23, 2024. Its USGS Volcano Alert level is ADVISORY.

Episode 46 of summit lava fountaining happened for nine hours on May 5. Summit region inflation since the end of episode 46 indicates that another fountaining episode is possible but more time and data is needed before a forecast can be made. No unusual activity has been noted along Kilauea’s East Rift Zone or Southwest Rift Zone.

Mauna Loa is not erupting. Its USGS Volcano Alert Level is at NORMAL.

HVO continues to closely monitor Kilauea and Mauna Loa.

Please visit HVO’s website for past Volcano Watch articles, Kilauea and Mauna Loa updates, volcano photos, maps, recent earthquake information, and more. Email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.

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