00:00:03 [Speaker 1] Growing frustration for some fire victims dealing with insurance companies. 00:00:07 [Speaker 1] Many say they're getting the run around. 00:00:09 [Speaker 1] Flames skipped over hundreds of properties like this one but left a dangerous trail of smoke damage. 00:00:15 [Speaker 2] Smoke from January's deadly Eaton fire clings to the walls, floors, and furniture. 00:00:20 [Speaker 2] The House tested positive for lead, and the family can't return home because it's not safe. 00:00:26 [Speaker 1] They've gone through three adjusters with State Farm so far after they say one ignored a noticeable damage to their roof. 00:00:33 [Speaker 4] If you remember during our first episode, we touched on some of the vendors that insurance carriers like State Farm and Amica hire to do testing and clean up of homes damaged by wildfires. 00:00:45 [Speaker 4] In this episode, we will go deeper into that shadowland of insurance subcontracting. 00:00:50 [Speaker 4] Who are these entities that you've never heard of that appear to take care of your smoke damaged home? 00:00:55 [Speaker 4] What are they doing exactly? 00:00:57 [Speaker 4] Are they independent? 00:00:58 [Speaker 4] And why are policyholders expressing so much dissatisfaction with them? 00:01:03 [Speaker 2] Many victims whose homes are suffering from smoke and toxic ash in the Eaton And Palisades fire zones are battling with their insurance companies to pay for cleanup and repair. 00:01:12 [Speaker 5] The insurance company kinda treats you like the forgotten stepchild. 00:01:16 [Speaker 1] They just say, it looks okay. 00:01:18 [Speaker 5] Yeah. It's just dirty. 00:01:19 [Speaker 6] Dirty. 00:01:19 [Speaker 6] This is what you would do if your goal was to delay the process as much as possible and can minimize your losses as an insurance company. 00:01:28 [Speaker 4] We all know who the big insurance companies are and not many people like them. 00:01:33 [Speaker 4] But they are only part of the insurance claims galaxy. 00:01:37 [Speaker 4] Once you file a claim, on come industrial hygienists to perform testing and remediation companies to do cleanup. 00:01:45 [Speaker 4] Many only work for insurance companies. 00:01:48 [Speaker 4] There are high end consultants who are brought in when an insurer smells a lawsuit. 00:01:54 [Speaker 4] And these consultants often use fancy language to dress up all the work they don't do. 00:02:00 [Speaker 4] But too often, they are instruments to underpay and under clean homes. 00:02:04 [Speaker 3] Play this game of musical adjusters, in our opinion, to buy time and to put pressure on the claimants because people are desperate for cash, and some people will accept the lowball offer. 00:02:17 [Speaker 4] So stay with us as we pull the curtain back. 00:02:20 [Speaker 4] I'm Justin Kloczko. 00:02:22 [Speaker 4] This is Smoke and Mirrors, a new investigative podcast series from Consumer Watchdog. 00:02:26 [Speaker 4] This is episode two, uncovering the insurance subcontracting underworld. 00:02:35 [Speaker 7] They're not there to serve the policyholder. 00:02:39 [Speaker 7] They're there to serve the insurance company. 00:02:42 [Speaker 8] Of course, the longer things went on, the more we realized that this is just not how this works at all and that the companies they're hiring don't really have our best interest in mind. 00:02:52 [Speaker 5] They're not really testers to figure out what's in there. 00:02:55 [Speaker 5] They're testers to minimize the claim. 00:02:59 [Speaker 4] That last voice is Jesse Morrow, whose home suffered smoke damage from the Eaton fire earlier this year in Altadena, California. 00:03:06 [Speaker 4] A couple years ago, the Morrow’s did a gut run of their home, so it was pretty much brand new. 00:03:12 [Speaker 4] Keep this in mind for later. 00:03:15 [Speaker 4] Then came the sweeping fires out of Angeles National Forest and into the foothills of Los Angeles County. 00:03:21 [Speaker 4] Morrow is an example of someone who is prepared as anyone could be for the fight ahead. 00:03:25 [Speaker 4] His cousin, a public adjuster who was affected by the Marshall Fire in Colorado, told him immediately to hire an adjuster to help him with the insurance claims battle, as well as a top notch tester for toxins. 00:03:37 [Speaker 4] And still, it hasn't been enough when up against the monolithic force of the insurance industry. 00:03:41 [Speaker 4] In Morrow's case, Amica Mutual Insurance Company, which over the past year has been seeking to rebut the testing results of toxins found in the Morrow's home. 00:03:52 [Speaker 5] We didn't realize what we were up against, that there's these insurance companies and these, it's like a it's an industrial complex. 00:04:01 [Speaker 5] They all know each other. 00:04:03 [Speaker 5] They're all friends. 00:04:05 [Speaker 4] The general expectation from people is that we pay insurance for a reason, to have our backs and recoup losses when something bad happens, it's a simple process on paper anyway. 00:04:16 [Speaker 4] Test to establish what's inside and come up with a good plan to clean up or replace what can't be salvaged. 00:04:23 [Speaker 4] But that's not what's been happening at all this year for most survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires. 00:04:29 [Speaker 5] We actually had gone back the day of the fire because we had no fire support. 00:04:34 [Speaker 5] So we had evacuated our family to the Hollywood Hills. 00:04:37 [Speaker 5] My wife and I went back and fought the fire with garden hoses all day. 00:04:43 [Speaker 4] So one of the first thing the Morrows did after averting a total loss of their home was to ask Amica about testing due to smoke damage. 00:04:49 [Speaker 4] That's the first thing that has to be done, establish if and to what extent toxins are in a home. 00:04:54 [Speaker 4] And if toxins are found in the building components or contents of a home, they generally have to be replaced. 00:05:00 [Speaker 4] Air filters, scrubbers, or deodorizers just won't clean them properly. 00:05:05 [Speaker 5] And then we asked the insurance company. 00:05:08 [Speaker 5] We said we're very concerned about heavy metals. 00:05:12 [Speaker 5] Our house was brand new. 00:05:13 [Speaker 5] We don't want heavy metals in the drywall. 00:05:16 [Speaker 5] And they denied that request, and they said, we're sending in JS Held, and JS Held is just gonna do what they're gonna do. 00:05:22 [Speaker 5] And we said, well, are you going to give us a plan for the testing plan? 00:05:27 [Speaker 5] And they're like, nope. 00:05:29 [Speaker 4] So JS Held, a consulting firm hired by Amica, came in and did about 15 tape samples and some air sampling. 00:05:36 [Speaker 4] JS Held's recommendation was that everything could be cleaned. 00:05:39 [Speaker 4] No problem, according to Jesse. 00:05:42 [Speaker 4] Meanwhile, being no fools, the Morrows hired the industrial Dawn Balstead Johnson, who you heard from in our first episode. 00:05:51 [Speaker 4] She did about 2,100 tests in the Morrow home and found cyanide in the plaster walls as well as in a sofa, and unhealthy levels of the carcinogen acetaldehyde. 00:06:01 [Speaker 4] It cost the Morrows $17,000; made possible by Jesse taking out an SBA loan. 00:06:09 [Speaker 4] For the Morrow home, Bolstad-Johnson recommended the removal of things contaminated by the fire, such as drywall, carpeting, HVAC equipment, all insulation. 00:06:19 [Speaker 4] She determined that all contents and building materials have been exposed to toxic levels of carcinogens, chemical concentrations, and suspended particulates since the date of the fire. 00:06:30 [Speaker 4] The fire damage was pervasive and the scope of damage extensive, she said. 00:06:35 [Speaker 4] But instead, Amica sent a company called Blue Sky Environmental. 00:06:40 [Speaker 4] At first, it was looking good. 00:06:41 [Speaker 4] The company would retest instead of merely rebut Bolstad-Johnson’s report. 00:06:46 [Speaker 4] But when the Morrows started asking questions to understand that, then things got dicey. 00:06:51 [Speaker 5] And any questions that we asked him, he just was very, like especially to my wife, just dismissive, didn't wanna answer questions, said that we were being uncooperative. 00:07:03 [Speaker 4] So the blue sky people dropped out before doing anything. 00:07:07 [Speaker 4] Next, Amica dispatched HRA Consulting to rebut Bolstad-Johnson's report. 00:07:13 [Speaker 4] I'll read you some choice excerpts from it because it's very insightful into how these high end corporate consultants work. 00:07:19 [Speaker 4] The author of the report is called chloride ion levels in the home, which are toxins emitted from burning things like lithium batteries, which are everywhere now. 00:07:30 [Speaker 4] The HRA report said, chloride ions are common in household environments and can originate from numerous sources unrelated to fire exposure, including sea spray, especially relevant in coastal Southern California. 00:07:45 [Speaker 4] Okay. 00:07:45 [Speaker 4] Wait. 00:07:45 [Speaker 4] Time out. 00:07:46 [Speaker 4] Did the report just say the breeze from the ocean, which is about 25 miles away from the fires, is a contributing factor to the toxins present in the Morrow's home? 00:07:56 [Speaker 4] And this is a virtually new home that was subject to fires all around it. 00:08:01 [Speaker 4] But, sea spray, that's the problem. 00:08:03 [Speaker 5] Honestly, I think he just copied that rebuttal from a palisade's house and just left that line in there. 00:08:09 [Speaker 5] That's what I I mean, why would you leave that line in there if it makes no sense? 00:08:15 [Speaker 5] Like, it's ridiculous. 00:08:19 [Speaker 4] So who is JS Held? 00:08:21 [Speaker 4] Who is HRA Consulting? 00:08:24 [Speaker 4] Who is Blue Sky? 00:08:26 [Speaker 4] Well, here's what we found, and it's all very interesting. 00:08:30 [Speaker 4] HRA Consulting is one guy named Hamid Arabzadeh, whose website listed an office that is an apartment in New York City and a UPS store in San Francisco, and who relies mostly on his nose to test for chemicals. 00:08:42 [Speaker 4] And most of his work is for insurance companies or law firms repping insurance companies. 00:08:47 [Speaker 4] That's all according to a deposition he sat for a couple years ago, and it's a doozy. 00:08:52 [Speaker 4] The home subject to litigation was within feet of the Tenaja fire, a rural fire that occurred in Riverside County in 2019. 00:09:01 [Speaker 4] The home suffered smoke damage, but the insurance company, Catlin, hired HIRI to inspect the home. 00:09:07 [Speaker 4] Here's our reenactment of parts of the deposition. 00:09:10 [Speaker 4] It's from a case called Moore versus Catlin Insurance. 00:09:13 [Speaker 4] So different from the Morrows. 00:09:16 [Speaker 9] So your method was you did a visual inspection of the home. 00:09:20 [Speaker 9] You used your nose to inspect to some degree, and then you did those six tape lifts. 00:09:26 [Speaker 9] Right? 00:09:27 [Speaker 9] Correct. 00:09:29 [Speaker 9] So other than what you see with your eyes, you believe that the question of damage to building components is not very complex. 00:09:36 [Speaker 10] Right? 00:09:37 [Speaker 10] If the flames haven't touched the house, yes. 00:09:41 [Speaker 4] Translation, smoke damage isn't real. 00:09:44 [Speaker 4] His report of the home he examined said he used something called sponge wipes, which are used to collect dust samples. 00:09:50 [Speaker 4] But he testified that he actually didn't use them. 00:09:53 [Speaker 9] Did you use any sponge wipes? 00:09:55 [Speaker 10] I don't believe I did. 00:09:57 [Speaker 9] So why is it on your report if you didn't use them? 00:10:01 [Speaker 10] It's just there. 00:10:02 [Speaker 10] It is, you know, something I put on the reports. 00:10:05 [Speaker 4] So maybe you're confused like I am. 00:10:06 [Speaker 4] Does he just throw whatever into these reports, kind of like the sea breeze line of the Morrow's home? 00:10:12 [Speaker 4] Where can we get jobs like that? 00:10:14 [Speaker 9] Okay. 00:10:15 [Speaker 9] But what did you do to determine whether the area around the Moore’s house had been impacted in that way possibly? 00:10:23 [Speaker 10] I think it's not needed to do anything, and I didn't do it. 00:10:26 [Speaker 10] I looked at the conditions where the fire was. 00:10:28 [Speaker 10] Those are what I did. 00:10:29 [Speaker 4] So stop right there. 00:10:30 [Speaker 4] He relied on no industry or governmental standards to assess the home? 00:10:35 [Speaker 4] He basically did the smell test and some tape lifts. 00:10:38 [Speaker 4] That's his move. 00:10:39 [Speaker 4] According to experts like Bolstad-Johnson, thorough tests collect air particles in different ranges, screen key toxins, sample surfaces, heavy metals, and see if emissions seeped into the drywall or HVAC. 00:10:52 [Speaker 4] Tape lifts are just not as effective according to her. 00:10:54 [Speaker 11] We're testing for total cyanide in wallboard and yoga mats and baby car seats and mattresses, bolster pillows, and we're finding that everywhere. 00:11:04 [Speaker 11] So there's been no fire like this that has included this amount of, you know, synthetic materials, this amount of batteries, this amount of electronics. 00:11:14 [Speaker 11] So it's really unprecedented. 00:11:16 [Speaker 11] But this is a very toxic fire. 00:11:20 [Speaker 4] Keep in mind that the Eaton and Palisades fires are as much, if not more, an urban fire than a wood fire, which means insurers should test more to ensure homes are safe. 00:11:32 [Speaker 4] Okay. 00:11:32 [Speaker 4] Back to the testing subcontractor, HRA Consulting. 00:11:38 [Speaker 4] He's being asked about volatile organic compounds or VOCs, stuff that is emitted from paint, cleaning supplies, building supplies, wood, etc 00:11:44 [Speaker 9] Do you know, as you sit here today, whether any VOCs, including PAHs, were absorbed into any building component, fabric, or other porous surface at the Moore’s residence. 00:11:58 [Speaker 9] I don't believe so. 00:11:59 [Speaker 4] Despite not testing, Arabzadeh testified that it was unlikely that soot and VOCs were absorbed into the home. 00:12:07 [Speaker 4] This consultant's recommendation of the home in question was, don't do anything. 00:12:12 [Speaker 4] No vacuuming or wiping even. 00:12:15 [Speaker 4] So Catlin Insurance paid $25,000 for the services of HRA consulting. 00:12:21 [Speaker 5] He also tried to say that the cyanide in the ADU is from a from a gas appliance or a wood burning fireplace. 00:12:28 [Speaker 5] Uh-huh. 00:12:29 [Speaker 5] But it's brand new. 00:12:30 [Speaker 5] There's never been a gas appliance in there. 00:12:32 [Speaker 5] It's all electric. 00:12:33 [Speaker 5] And there's never been a fire plant. 00:12:35 [Speaker 4] Morrow believes his insurance is data shopping or performing tests until it finds the cheap desired result it is looking for. 00:12:42 [Speaker 5] Yeah. 00:12:43 [Speaker 5] So now they're coming out. 00:12:44 [Speaker 5] They wanna schedule another test with Ahmed. 00:12:47 [Speaker 4] Oh, so how about JS Held? 00:12:49 [Speaker 4] Who are they? 00:12:50 [Speaker 4] Well, first, here's who they say they are according to their website. 00:12:55 [Speaker 4] JS Held is a global consulting firm that combines technical, scientific, financial, and strategic expertise to advise clients seeking to realize value and mitigate risk. 00:13:05 [Speaker 4] Our professionals serve as trusted advisers to organizations facing high stakes matters demanding urgent attention, staunch integrity, proven experience, clear cut analysis, and an understanding of both tangible and intangibles assets. 00:13:19 [Speaker 4] The company serves 81% of global 200 law firms, 70% of the Forbes top 20 insurance companies, and 65% of the Fortune 100 companies. 00:13:30 [Speaker 4] Okay. 00:13:30 [Speaker 4] Translation. 00:13:31 [Speaker 4] It ain't for you. 00:13:32 [Speaker 4] In fact, you, regular person A, probably can't afford us. 00:13:36 [Speaker 4] We're trying to save the big guy as much money as possible. 00:13:40 [Speaker 4] These consultants actively market their services towards companies and law firms, and a person isn't likely to get their services on their own. 00:13:48 [Speaker 4] Remember when I said certain entities appear when an insurance company kinda knows it messed up? 00:13:52 [Speaker 4] It's important to point out that JS Held was the first on the scene of the Morrow residence before anyone else came to examine it. 00:13:59 [Speaker 4] And when they did arrive, they tested very narrowly. 00:14:02 [Speaker 4] Anyway, back to Jesse Morrow. 00:14:05 [Speaker 5] They're the testing company of choice because they are large and they test for litigation. 00:14:13 [Speaker 5] They're not really testers to figure out what's in there. 00:14:16 [Speaker 5] They're testers to minimize the claim. 00:14:19 [Speaker 5] They're minimizing the damage from 00:14:23 [Speaker 4] from the very beginning. 00:14:23 [Speaker 4] That's because they're actually not industrial hygienists. 00:14:26 [Speaker 4] They're actually just consulting firms. 00:14:29 [Speaker 4] So was Blue Sky, who dropped out after being asked to explain their job. 00:14:34 [Speaker 4] Another company we've been hearing a lot about from policyholders is PW Stephens, which describes itself as setting the gold standard of service in the environmental abatement and remediation industry within the greater state of California, end quote. 00:14:49 [Speaker 4] Just wait. 00:14:50 [Speaker 4] They work for Farmers, AAA, all the big insurance providers. 00:14:54 [Speaker 4] And I spoke with one woman whom her insurance, Farmers, foisted this company onto her to clean the lead inside her Altadena home. 00:15:03 [Speaker 4] Karen Girard. 00:15:05 [Speaker 4] You ever just mess around and read a remediation contract? 00:15:09 [Speaker 4] Well, Karen did very carefully, and she found some absurd things. 00:15:13 [Speaker 4] Like the fact that PW Stephens, after it is done doing its, quote, standard service, end quote, said, quote, the work provided in this contract does not include the removal of any hazardous dust materials, such as asbestos, lead, or other hazardous dust particles, unless otherwise noted in our contract, end quote. 00:15:33 [Speaker 7] And so they won't actually guarantee that the home is remediated for lead. 00:15:37 [Speaker 4] Which is sort of understandable because lead is already present in a lot of homes. 00:15:41 [Speaker 4] But that's coming from a company that remediates lead. 00:15:44 [Speaker 4] What's even more head scratching is the following language in their contracts, which say, quote, this bid is based on no clearance testing being performed. 00:15:52 [Speaker 4] Should lead clearance testing be performed and the clearance test fails to meet lead clearance standards, PWSEI will continue to clean the surface areas at a rate of a $135 per hour per man. 00:16:05 [Speaker 4] PWSCI is not responsible to the cost associated with the failed clearance testing. 00:16:09 [Speaker 4] So the company is basically saying, we'll clean for the price we quoted, but if a lead test happens later and it doesn't pass, you'll have to pay more to keep cleaning, and you also have to pay for the test. 00:16:21 [Speaker 7] So to my mind, they're being paid to do a service that may or may not work. 00:16:27 [Speaker 7] In my case, the Eaton fire started. 00:16:30 [Speaker 7] I fled my home, in the middle of the night. 00:16:32 [Speaker 7] There were no alerts of any kind, and I drove out with my car being buffeted by ash. 00:16:38 [Speaker 7] The aftermath has been far worse in a different way, because the immediate disaster was frightening, but, the recovery from the fire has been incredibly difficult because the social services, the governmental services, the paid services like insurance are not actually helping those of us who are survivors of the fire. 00:17:04 [Speaker 7] But then the gaslighting starts. 00:17:08 [Speaker 7] It turns out that Servpro answers directly to the insurance company, in my case, Farmers. 00:17:14 [Speaker 4] Servpro is the vendor that Farmers sent out to clean Girard's home. 00:17:18 [Speaker 4] Though they initially denied testing her smoke damaged home, the company's report recommended only minimal cleaning. 00:17:25 [Speaker 4] But after the LA Department of Public Health put out an advisory that said anyone in a property within two hundred fifty yards of a burn structure would face health risks, Farmers reversed its decision. 00:17:38 [Speaker 4] They sent out an industrial hygiene company called hygiene tech. 00:17:42 [Speaker 7] I was talking to the adjuster. 00:17:44 [Speaker 7] I said, you know, so what are the qualifications of these folks? 00:17:48 [Speaker 7] What are the, what are the kinds of things they're testing for? 00:17:53 [Speaker 7] Why are we, why are they answering to you and not to me? 00:17:58 [Speaker 7] And I, I expressed dissatisfaction that I was being left out of the left end of the process. 00:18:06 [Speaker 7] That particular jester, whose name was Chris, said that he hoped I would be satisfied with the service when all was said and done, but that Farmers is a financial company, A financial company whose job is to is to deliver, the cash to to remit to fix the properties. 00:18:27 [Speaker 7] They are not in fact an insurance company. 00:18:29 [Speaker 7] I was shocked because I felt like, he's saying the quiet part out loud. 00:18:34 [Speaker 4] But Girard was still hopeful and still not given the full picture. 00:18:40 [Speaker 4] While looking through the testing report, red flags emerged. 00:18:43 [Speaker 4] The testing protocol according to Girard. 00:18:45 [Speaker 4] They should have tested for more chemicals and in more locations, she said. 00:18:49 [Speaker 7] Places where you spend a lot of time, like your bed or your sofa, are good candidates for testing because you get a sense of just how dangerous the goods are in your home. 00:19:01 [Speaker 7] They did not test any of these that I can tell. 00:19:04 [Speaker 7] They took bulk samples for the soft goods, and they never recorded where they took them. 00:19:09 [Speaker 7] And when I got to the one that was on top of the automated thermostat that I touch twice a year, I realized just how biased it was. 00:19:19 [Speaker 4] Again, testing expert Dawn Bolstad-Johnson. 00:19:22 [Speaker 11] So it's the wild, wild west. 00:19:23 [Speaker 11] Everybody's doing whatever they want. 00:19:26 [Speaker 4] Yeah. 00:19:27 [Speaker 11] They don't wanna pay, or can't afford to pay for extensive testing. 00:19:33 [Speaker 11] So consultants are coming and they're saying, oh, we can come and sample for $3,500, and we'll take seven samples. 00:19:40 [Speaker 11] What they're doing is seven square inches of foot tar and ash. 00:19:44 [Speaker 11] So you're making a determination on a 3,000 – 4,000 square foot house and seven inches of data. 00:19:51 [Speaker 11] And it doesn't address the VOCs. 00:19:53 [Speaker 11] It doesn't address heavy metals. 00:19:54 [Speaker 11] It doesn't adjust any of the things that this home was exposed to. 00:19:58 [Speaker 4] So the report came back positive for lead and arsenic. 00:20:01 [Speaker 4] And, of course, farmers knew a guy, and that's where PW Stephens comes in. 00:20:06 [Speaker 4] Everything will be clean. 00:20:07 [Speaker 4] Nothing will have to be thrown out. 00:20:09 [Speaker 4] No problem, was the answer. 00:20:10 [Speaker 7] So, we will attempt to clean everything. 00:20:15 [Speaker 7] And if you're not satisfied, if you think that it is not clean, if you smell smoke, then you can do a sniff test and we'll come back and redo the job. 00:20:24 [Speaker 4] Karen's response? 00:20:26 [Speaker 7] That's how you get lead poisoning. 00:20:28 [Speaker 4] Then she saw the contract language actually guaranteeing the home being cleaned of lead. 00:20:32 [Speaker 7] They're essentially the insurance company's employees if they are not in any way shape or form independent. 00:20:40 [Speaker 7] And when the insurance company chooses all the vendors and then uses those vendors to limit the scope of work and then uses those vendors' alleged certifications and expertise to deny you payment on your choice of vendors, then how is a homeowner supposed to remediate their home and what is the value in of insurance because it's not actually paying to remediate your home? 00:21:07 [Speaker 4] Right now, Girard is out of pocket about 10 grand for testing, and the cleaning of her home is still up in the air. 00:21:13 [Speaker 7] I'm surprised at how naked and open this is. 00:21:18 [Speaker 4] According to California regulator South Coast AQMD, which aims to improve air quality for parts of Southern California, it has fined PW Stephens five times since 2018 in connection with civil settlements for air pollution violations, including an almost $57,000 penalty against the company for violations of asbestos emission regulations. 00:21:40 [Speaker 4] AQMD records show the company failed to properly contain or notify regulators during an asbestos remediation on at least one occasion. 00:21:48 [Speaker 4] In 2009, PW Stephens settled a lawsuit alleging it improperly flushed asbestos containing material into a home septic system. 00:21:58 [Speaker 8] They are essentially a cleaning company, and so they're not certified to deal with these crazy chemicals that were burned, in this urban fire. 00:22:07 [Speaker 4] That's Altadena resident Jenny Kampmeier. 00:22:10 [Speaker 4] She's talking about Servpro, the vendor that worked for her insurer, State Farm. 00:22:15 [Speaker 4] Her house sustained smoke damage. 00:22:17 [Speaker 4] If she entered it for just a few minutes, she'd get pretty bad headaches. 00:22:21 [Speaker 4] Servpro doesn't test. 00:22:23 [Speaker 4] They clean. 00:22:23 [Speaker 4] It doesn't perform environmental testing, nor are they licensed labs or industrial hygienists. 00:22:29 [Speaker 4] The gist of their testing is the eyes and nose of their employees. 00:22:33 [Speaker 4] And as humans, we all have eyes and ears, so Servpro, nothing special. 00:22:40 [Speaker 8] The function of their service is not to truly ensure that your house is safe to live in. 00:22:45 [Speaker 8] It's to clean it so that it smells good. 00:22:48 [Speaker 8] So by looking at it, does it look clean? 00:22:50 [Speaker 8] Does it smell clean? 00:22:51 [Speaker 8] That's the only testing that they do after the fact. 00:22:54 [Speaker 4] But they won't open drawers or closets or washing machines to clean, according to several policyholders I talked to. 00:23:03 [Speaker 4] It's all about appearances. 00:23:05 [Speaker 8] One of the other things that struck me, the estimate from Servpro, is that they use a lot of technical language to try to make it sound like they know what they're doing. 00:23:14 [Speaker 8] Right? 00:23:15 [Speaker 8] Just saying that they're gonna HEPA vacuum, all that is a vacuum with a HEPA filter. 00:23:20 [Speaker 8] That just the HEPA filter just ensures that you're not blowing stuff back out in the back end of the vacuum when you're vacuuming. 00:23:25 [Speaker 8] It doesn't make the vacuuming any more efficient or any better. 00:23:29 [Speaker 8] It's not a better vacuum. 00:23:31 [Speaker 8] It's just got a better filter. 00:23:32 [Speaker 8] Right? 00:23:33 [Speaker 8] Or same thing they would talk about, oh, we're gonna use, you know, soot sponges to, you know, to test for soot. 00:23:39 [Speaker 8] And that is kind of a specialized thing. 00:23:41 [Speaker 8] It's like a little rubbery block that they can use to scrape onto a couch or on onto, you know, a cabinet. 00:23:47 [Speaker 8] And if it comes back black, then we know that there's still soot present. 00:23:51 [Speaker 8] But, again, that's not really something very special or technical to actually ensure that your couch is free from contaminants. 00:23:57 [Speaker 8] It's just a little piece of rubber. 00:24:00 [Speaker 8] Right? 00:24:00 [Speaker 8] So they would use a lot of technical language that makes it sound very professional and and rigorous. 00:24:07 [Speaker 8] But when you kind of think about what they're actually saying really doing is wiping things down with, like, a microfiber cloth and some spray, they're just vacuuming my house. 00:24:17 [Speaker 8] I could do that. 00:24:17 [Speaker 8] Why would I pay $23,000 for somebody to vacuum? 00:24:20 [Speaker 8] Right? 00:24:20 [Speaker 8] Like 00:24:21 [Speaker 4] We're gonna bring back Dylan Schaffer, the attorney who's been litigating these issues in court and finding great success. 00:24:26 [Speaker 4] You heard from him in episode one. 00:24:28 [Speaker 12] The challenge is demonstrating through high quality the problem with their hygienist, environmental professionals, is that they're all paid off. 00:24:39 [Speaker 12] So and they're also then working hand and glove with the remediation industry, which is very profitable and which is basically, you know, house cleaners with hazmat suits on. 00:24:51 [Speaker 12] So the real challenge is to get competent hygienists to say, this is the scope that's necessary. 00:24:58 [Speaker 12] And that means, for instance, tearing out ducting, insulation, carpeting, flooring in many cases, drywall in many cases. 00:25:06 [Speaker 12] And in the worst cases, you know, sheathing and framing. 00:25:12 [Speaker 4] Almost a year after the fires, survivors are still displaced from their homes, and they're still fighting their insurance providers. 00:25:21 [Speaker 7] So, you know, I left my home under pretty difficult circumstances, but the aftermath has been far worse in a different way because the immediate disaster was frightening but the immediate recovery from the fire has been difficult. 00:25:39 [Speaker 8] A bunch of us board up our houses because we, on top of everything else, let's not also get broken into, right? 00:25:44 [Speaker 8] Because we're not there to protect, you know, our properties. 00:25:47 [Speaker 5] We just don't want it to be, We don't wanna move back into it if it's not safe, and it's really hard to determine that. 00:25:55 [Speaker 4] The problem is there are no established standards to follow for smoke damage testing and remediation. 00:26:00 [Speaker 8] To his credit, one of the things that my Servpro representative said is that their industry doesn't have good guidelines for how to deal with something like this. 00:26:08 [Speaker 8] It's a relatively new phenomenon and the body that provides guidelines for cleaning and restoration companies, they have guidelines for wildfire and they have guidelines for house fires, but they don't really have guidelines for urban wildland interface fires. 00:26:24 [Speaker 8] And so he said, yeah. 00:26:26 [Speaker 8] We're just the guidelines for a wildfire. 00:26:28 [Speaker 4] And although under the California insurance code an insurer can't push a vendor onto you and as a policy holder, you have the right to pick your own vendor, they are refusing. 00:26:38 [Speaker 4] And it's part of the reason companies are getting away with narrow testing and cleaning protocols. 00:26:49 [Speaker 4] This summer, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who's supposed to regulate the insurance industry, formed a 13 member smoke claims and remediation task force. 00:26:59 [Speaker 2] After receiving hundreds of complaints from frustrated policyholders, this week, Lara created a task force to establish insurance standards for families to safely return home. 00:27:11 [Speaker 2] That means insurance companies will have to cover the expenses of the cleanup. 00:27:15 [Speaker 4] Here's Laura's press release announcing the task force. 00:27:19 [Speaker 4] Together, they will recommend science-based insurance standards and best practices for safely returning to and restoring homes and personal property. 00:27:28 [Speaker 4] But guess who's on the task force? 00:27:31 [Speaker 4] Hamid Arabzadeh, the HRA environmental consulting guy who does the smell tests, as well as the president of Blue Sky Environmental Consulting, who bailed on testing the Morrow's home. 00:27:43 [Speaker 4] More than half the task force's corporate consultants or lobbyists working for the insurance industry, Safeguard Enviro Group, Forensic Analytical Consulting, Anderson Group International, and two insurance company trade associations. 00:27:58 [Speaker 4] No public adjusters or independent testers or industrial hygienists were appointed by the insurance commissioner. 00:28:04 [Speaker 4] The task force is supposed to deliver science based statewide standards for how homes damaged by wildfire smoke should be handled. 00:28:12 [Speaker 4] But will these standards make people's homes safe to live in? 00:28:15 [Speaker 4] Or is it more likely, given what we've learned about these consultants' loyalties, that they'll lowball the standards to protect insurance companies' bottom line? 00:28:25 [Speaker 4] So the battle over smoke damage is only beginning. 00:28:28 [Speaker 4] Stay tuned for our final episode. 00:28:31 [Speaker 4] I'm Justin Kloczko. 00:28:32 [Speaker 4] Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now. 00:28:40 [Speaker 4] Smoke and Mirrors is written and produced by Justin Kloczko, engineering and sound design by John Ennis. 00:28:45 [Speaker 4] Our editor is Carmen Balber, and our executive producer is Jamie Court.