A huge wildfire is raging through celebrity homes on a Los Angeles hillside – just the latest in a bevy of bad luck to hit the state. And, with a state of emergency now being called, locals are fleeing as firefighters continue to battle the blaze.
Dramatic footage coming out of Pacific Palisades, a celebrity hotspot boasting homes belonging to Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks, James Woods (X video below) and others, shows people abandoning their cars and homes to flee to flames.
Leaving pic.twitter.com/yJDQ8xIhbI
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 7, 2025
Posting on Instagram, Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt asked for “people to come together to support” each other during this time.
“Please send prayers and strength tonight to everyone in Los Angeles affected by these devastating fires,” he added. “Los Angeles is in a state of emergency and over 30,000 have been ordered to evacuate.”
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Schitt’s Creek actor Eugene Levy said he’s been forced to evacuate his own home: “The smoke looked pretty black and intense over Temescal Canyon. I couldn’t see any flames but the smoke was very dark.”
The fire, which reportedly broke out Tuesday, has spread quickly, spurred on by high winds – with 30,000 people now under a mandatory evacuation order. This fire is just one in a recent slew of natural disasters to hit the California property market, with the Franklin Fire, Line Fire and the San Bernardino Wildfire to name a few in 2024 alone – creating chaos across the Californian insurance world.
Speaking to Insurance Business in a recent interview, Charlie Massie, president of ISU Massie & Beck Insurance Services, said that the ongoing natural disasters are sending brokers fleeing – and it’s having a knock-on effect for homeowners too.
“The property market, both in California and nationwide, is experiencing a mass exodus of standard and admitted carriers. Places like Malibu, Lake Tahoe, and other luxury regions are being abandoned by carriers unwilling to shoulder the risks. We’ve had to pivot significantly. The resulting policies, however, come with steep price tags. For properties in high-risk areas, we often have to layer coverage across multiple carriers. It’s a complex process that leads to premiums most would consider exorbitant.”
And unfortunately, this is a trend that mortgage and insurance brokers don’t expect to end any time soon. Rising premiums and dwindling availability are shifting the California market – having a trickle-down impact onto overall dynamics. According to NewsWeek, the California Department of Insurance approved Allstate's request to raise homeowners insurance premiums by 34.1% – the largest rate hike by a major insurer in the state over the past three years. What’s more, USAA's direct premiums written in California increased from $523.1 million in 2019 to $741.7 million in 2023, reflecting a significant rise in policy costs over recent years.
“The rising costs, and more importantly, the limited availability of products in high-risk areas in San Diego and throughout the state of California, are impacted by the major losses from wildfires, as well as rising costs of materials and goods,” said Ben Madick, CEO and co-founder of Matic. “The volatility in the insurance market has caused certain mortgage transactions to fall through or be significantly delayed due to the lack of product availability. It has stopped certain transactions from being completed because of the lack of availability of insurance.”
