No home, no insurance: Double hit from Los Angeles fires

A Los Angeles Department of Water and Power employee inspects electrical wires destroyed by the Palisades Fire, on January 21, 2025, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. [AFP]

As he looks at the ruins of his home razed when deadly fires tore through the Los Angeles area, Sebastian Harrison knows it will never be the same again, because he was not insured.

"I knew it was risky, but I had no choice," he told AFP. Harrison is one of tens of thousands of Californians forced in recent years to live without a safety net, either because their insurance company dropped them, or because the premiums just got too high.