Tyler Perry recently took to Instagram to slam the “pure greed” of insurance companies amid the devastating L.A. fires. The director’s statement was published shortly after a report from the Los Angeles Times informed readers that companies like State Farm General, the largest home insurance business in California, decided not to renew thousands of insurance policies last year in Altadena and other fire-prone neighborhoods in the Pacific Palisades that are now burned down. The cancellations have left many victims with no means of covering their losses in the fire.
“Watching a daughter use a garden hose to try and protect her 90-year-old parents’ home because their insurance was canceled was just gut-wrenching to me,” Perry wrote in his statement. “Does anyone else find it appalling that insurance companies can take billions of dollars out of communities for years and then, all of a sudden, be allowed to cancel millions of policies for the very people they became rich on?”
“People who have paid premiums all of their lives are left with nothing because of pure greed,” he added. “As I am in the process of trying to figure out what steps to take to do all I can to help as many as I can, I am keeping everyone in my prayers.
While some insurance companies canceled plans, others jacked the prices of plans so high that it was no longer feasible for some residents in the Pacific Palisades area to buy in. For instance, homeowner Francis Bischetti told the Times that Farmers Insurance boosted the price of his insurance policy from $4,500 to $18,000 last year. Bischetti had no choice but to drop the plan, leaving him without insurance by the time his house burned down in the L.A. fires this month.
“It was surrealistic,” he told the publication. “I’ve grown up and lived here off and on for 50 years. I’ve never in my entire time here experienced this.”
According to the Times, State Farm General announced last year “it would not renew 30,000 homeowner and condominium policies — including 1,626 in Pacific Palisades — when they expired.”