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CBS News
04-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
California wants fewer homeowners insured on the FAIR Plan. Data show the state's strategy may not be enough.
SACRAMENTO — As more people in California lose private insurance, the state's FAIR plan is filling up with homes in places the industry itself has classified as low-risk for wildfire. The state regulator has a strategy that they say will help people get off the FAIR plan. A CBS News California analysis shows the state's solution might not be enough. For Ken Cavalli and Lisa Fine-Cavalli, their new home in West Roseville is their dream home. It's about halfway between Sacramento and the Sierra Nevada foothills. Down their street, flat open fields are filling in with new housing developments without a tree in sight. They needed more space for their blended family, so they decided to buy one of those new homes, just a few minutes away from their current home and in the same ZIP code. "I thought it was going to be simple," Lisa said, "that our insurance was just going to transfer over." But it didn't. When the Cavallis applied for a new policy with their same insurer, they were denied. "I thought, 'Are you kidding me?' " Lisa said. "Ken's been on their insurance for 30 years, and we've never had any problems. We never had any claims." They asked that we not publicly identify their insurer; however, CBS News California learned that their insurer was among several major insurers that had stopped writing new policies in California. When the Cavallis called other companies, they heard the same thing. The problem is doubled for the Cavallis because it means not only are they without good options for their home, but the buyers of their old home won't be able to find a plan either. According to wildfire reporting mandated by the state regulator, the industry gave Ken and Lisa's ZIP code an average risk class of "negligible." Yet, like nearly half a million other Californians, the Cavallis have found themselves facing a choice between a risky, unregulated out-of-state insurer or the California FAIR Plan, the low-coverage insurer of last resort. A CBS News data analysis shows that more and more homes in low-risk areas are being forced into the FAIR plan. When using the industry's own wildfire risk reporting, there are 10 times as many homes in ZIP codes with risk levels in the lowest categories than in the highest. The FAIR plan is a privately run but state-mandated insurance plan of last resort for those who can't get homeowners insurance elsewhere. In recent years, this once-small plan has ballooned into one of the state's largest insurers as more and more Californians find themselves with no other options. About 30 other states have similar programs. When they're small and relatively obscure, FAIR plans perform an important function in ensuring the state's riskiest homes still have some insurance option. But a large FAIR plan is a dangerous liability, as California found out last January. The Los Angeles wildfires quickly drained the plan's surplus funds, leading to a $1 billion assessment on the rest of the state's insurers, at least half of which will be passed on to the people with regular insurance polices. By and large, the insurance industry would rather see a smaller FAIR plan as well, despite contributing to its size by writing fewer policies and announcing bulk "non-renewals" of existing customers. Rex Frazier, president of an insurance advocacy organization, calls the FAIR plan's size "a canary in the coal mine," indicative of larger problems in the market. "Insurers are not renewing policies," Frazier said. Because we have a system that has not allowed companies to earn enough money to do business everywhere." Frazier said that home insurance rates are objectively underpriced in California, a point of view that's become increasingly mainstream even if leaders are loath to say it out loud. In national comparisons, Florida and New York have the highest premiums, while California ranks much further down at 20th place below Kansas and Wyoming. Karl Sussman, a broker in Los Angeles, said that the real reason why people in low-risk places end up on the FAIR plan is a lack of competition. "We're suffering from that in a major way right now because of the shortage of availability in California," he said. "This is why we keep seeing the FAIR plan growing and growing and growing. And if you look at the growth, you can see that the majority of the growth is not in the brush. It's in areas that every carrier should be comfortable writing in." He said the FAIR plan won't start to shrink until insurers start expanding and writing new plans. And they won't do that, he said, until they can get the higher rates they say they need. Financial disclosures from the industry show that before expenses, home insurance remains profitable in California on average. Companies consistently report that they take in more premiums than they pay out in claims before other expenses. Yet, insurers argue profits have been declining, which can hit the large cash reserves they keep to prepare for large disasters. For example, State Farm, the state's largest insurer, saw its reserves drop from $4 billion in 2016 to an estimated $1 billion last year. The company has reported that the L.A. fires will cost it more than $600 million after its own reinsurance kicks in. The state's " sustainable insurance strategy " aims to reduce the FAIR plan's roster by forcing private insurers to take on more customers in high-risk parts of the state in exchange for other concessions, including one that allows companies to use new models in their rate filings and one that lets them pass on part of the cost of FAIR plan assessments to customers. The tricky part is that there are a lot of ways to define "high-risk." The strategy includes a pledge by insurers to eventually have 85% of their business in so-called "distressed areas," but it's not so simple as, say, including all FAIR plans or all high-risk homes. It's a complex combination of counties, ZIP codes, and individual homes that are included for slightly different reasons. Here are the ways a plan can qualify as part of that 85%: 1. High-risk FAIR plans If a home was previously on the FAIR plan and is also considered high-risk by the insurer's own rating, then that insurer can take that customer and it qualifies as part of the 85%. However, this depends on the insurer's own individual risk assessment, not a wildfire risk map or anything else. Given that most homes in the FAIR plan are currently in lower-risk ZIP codes, it's not clear how much this provision would help. Customers don't typically know their exact risk, but recent regulations now entitle Californians to receive their risk score from their insurer anytime they apply for a policy or on request after performing some kind of fire mitigation. The California Department of Insurance has details here . 2. Counties with lots of high-risk homes If a county has more homes rated at high or very high wildfire risk than the median county in the state, then all homes in that county count as part of the 85%. Notably, an insurer can take any home in that county as a customer, they don't have to be high risk or on the FARI Plan, and count it toward the 85%. The specific counties can change over time, but the Department of Insurance periodically releases a list . 3. High-fire-hazard ZIP codes with deep FAIR plan penetration This one might be the most confusing of the three. These are ZIP codes in a high- or very-high-fire-hazard region, as reported by Cal Fire's latest maps. But to officially be a "distressed area," at least 15% of the homes in the ZIP code must also currently be on the FAIR plan. Like with the distressed county regulation, the customer doesn't have to actually be on the FAIR plan to count toward the regulation's targets. Put together, the distressed areas look something like this, with many parts overlapping: The areas cover most of Northern California and the Sierra Nevada, but many existing FAIR plans are concentrated in the Los Angeles area, which the state's plan largely misses. About 47%, or 200,000 FAIR plan policies, aren't part of the current distressed areas, and insurers have few incentives to take them back on as customers if they aren't classified as high-risk. Notably, neither Palisades nor Altadena were classified as distressed areas under the regulations, and in the "distressed counties" of the north, insurers can get credit for writing any new policies in those counties, whether or not the home was on the FAIR plan or was even high-risk. Ken Cavalli works in the California State Capitol and is a freelance news photographer for CBS Sacramento, so he and Lisa know a little more than most about how politics works. "We need to figure out how all these leaders and insurance companies are going to come together and say, 'OK, this is what's best for the whole right now,' " Lisa said. "Because the nation is in crisis right now, and we're all aware of it. And now we need to have a way to make sure that families have homes."
CBS News
18-03-2025
- Business
- CBS News
FAIR PLAN SECRETS: Why California's insurer of last resort is so secretive
Since the LA fires on January 7, much more attention has been put on the California FAIR Plan, the state's fire insurer of last resort. Once thought of as a small, rarely-used backstop, the plan is now one of the largest in the state. Yet, it's also one of the most secretive insurers in California, able to withhold more information than even the private companies that run it. This may not have mattered much when the plan was small and needed little oversight. But new rules passed last September mean that anyone with property insurance will now pay to cover the FAIR plan's debts. "The reason all of us should care is that we're now on the hook, all of us, in case the FAIR Plan runs out of money," said Dave Jones, California's Insurance Commissioner from 2011-2018. The plan did run out of money and, on February 11 , current Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara signed an order authorizing the California FAIR Plan to collect $1 billion from its member companies -- half of which can be passed on to ratepayers. A CBS News California review of public records and data found: Often misidentified as a "state-run" plan, the California FAIR Plan has only a loose connection to the government. It operates as an independent non-profit and is run by a "Governing Committee" mostly consisting of people from the insurance industry. In most years, the plan operates like any other by collecting premiums from customers and paying claims from its revenue and reserves. But, when times are good and the plan runs a surplus, the committee can decide to "disburse" some of those funds back to the member companies like in a stock dividend. If the plan runs out of money, it can request additional funds from its member companies in what's called an "assessment," as it did last month. The last time the plan issued a disbursement was in 2017, right before the historic Tubbs and Thomas fires. At that time, the plan was still small and not yet a major player in fire insurance. "The FAIR Plan used to be an insurance policy mostly in urban areas that would cover your mortgage," said Michael Wara, who researches climate and energy policy at Stanford University. He said the original purpose was never to cover fire catastrophes but to cover inner city homes that had trouble finding coverage after the Watts riots in 1965. California is one of about 30 states nationwide that have FAIR plans. Each has its own rules and governing structure. Sometime after 2017, said Wara, the FAIR Plan began to transform into something different. "It's been changed into something that's much more like a normal insurance policy that will allow you to rebuild after a catastrophe," he said. A spate of non-renewals by major insurers, including State Farm and Farmers , fueled the FAIR Plan's rapid growth. According to the latest data, the California FAIR Plan is the sixth largest in the state and is on track to grow even larger. Just a few months before the LA Fires in January, Helen Meisel in the Pacific Palisades received a strange letter from State Farm, her home insurer. As she feared, it was a notice of non-renewal -- but only partially. "Fortunately," the letter read, "State Farm is keeping your policy, but will exclude fire insurance." Now she had two policies: The California FAIR Plan for fire and State Farm for everything else. She said the total cost was more than $6,000. "I'm paying two policies," she said, "more than double what I was paying before." Along with its unique status as the insurer of "last resort," the California FAIR Plan also enjoys protection from Prop 103 , the main law governing California's notoriously strict insurance regulation. While most every other private insurer in the state must publish regular financial statements, as well as detailed justifications for its rate increases, the California FAIR Plan discloses only the rate filings. That means the details of how much money it has and how it spends it are effectively secret to the public unless the plan chooses to disclose. Unlike similar plans around the country, such as the Florida Citizen's Plan, the California FAIR Plan's governing meetings and minutes are not public. The plan won't even reveal the names of the governing committee members. "I'm a pretty well-known insurance consumer advocate," said Amy Bach, Executive Director of United Policyholders . "People say to me, Amy, who's on the FAIR Plan governing board? I can't find that information out. Like, it's not public." Jones -- California's former insurance commissioner -- recalled that he tried to send a deputy to attend the FAIR Plan meetings. But when his deputy arrived, the FAIR Governing Committee went into a closed-door "executive session." "He showed up, they convened the meeting, and then they went to executive session and left the meeting," said Jones. Lara, the current insurance commissioner, is backing a bill that would add two representatives from the legislature to the committee. But it's not clear how much that would increase transparency if those members are excluded from any real decision-making just as Jones' representative was. While the FAIR Plan posts some select data and statistics online , its board chooses what to disclose and when. Prior to the LA fires, the last time the California FAIR Plan disclosed significant financial information was before the California State Assembly Insurance Committee more than a year ago. President Victoria Roach verbally described the plan's cash flow and reinsurance structure -- leading Representative Jim Wood to remark , "If this were on Wall Street, I'm not sure you'd be able to get away with this." The latest FAIR Plan bylaws seem designed to increase transparency on this front. The plan would be required to issue new reports that include details such as policy counts and total written premiums in distressed areas. However, this all resembles the data currently available on the FAIR Plan's website and fails to include any data about surplus cash or reinsurance. Insurance companies take out their own insurance to help manage particularly large disasters such as the LA fires. In 2022, a Department of Insurance audit found that the California FAIR Plan carried far less reinsurance than comparable plans in other states. Experts told CBS News that this leaves the FAIR Plan significantly more exposed to big disasters. "What that tells you is the FAIR plan is banking on the ability to assess," said Wara. "They're not charging the high-risk people enough, and the plan is to just assess on everybody else." The department's audit had a similar conclusion: "The FAIR Plan believes that its reinsurance needs are much different than a traditional market insurer since it can assess its insurance company members to fund liquidity needs." Prior to the latest rule changes, an assessment would have been a relatively private affair between the FAIR Plan and the insurance industry. But now, every ratepayer in the state is paying as well. For Rex Frazier, a lobbyist for the insurance industry, a lot of this amounts to growing pains. "Right now, this is a private organization that has come into prominence and is growing in an obviously haphazard way," said Frazier. When asked whether he thought the public should be privy to its meetings and financial statements now that the public is on the hook, he replied, "You can understand how someone would have that opinion. But that's not the law today."
CBS News
11-02-2025
- CBS News
"American Nightmare" survivors Denise Huskins, Aaron Quinn use their trauma to help retrain law enforcement
Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn gained worldwide notoriety when their 2015 home invasion and Huskins' kidnapping were chronicled in Netflix's highest-rated docuseries of 2024, "American Nightmare." The couple survived a harrowing experience, only to be publicly defamed by law enforcement, who falsely accused them of making the whole thing up. Meanwhile, Huskins' kidnapper, Matthew Muller, continued terrorizing other families. Critics blame antiquated interrogation training for what the couple was forced to endure. A decade later, Huskins and Quinn are now working with law enforcement and using their traumatic experience to help change the way officers are trained to interrogate suspects. In an exclusive interview with CBS News California, the couple took us through Quinn's interrogation, showing us step-by-step how traditional confession-driven interrogation methods led to their "American Nightmare." "It's terrifying to me to think of how many victims there might still be out there that are living in fear and wondering if they're going to be attacked again and that their perpetrators are still out there," Huskins told CBS News California. In collaboration with El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson, the couple is working to educate law enforcement from around the world on science-based interviewing, which proponents call a "more effective and ethical method" of interrogation. " American Nightmare": Lessons learned In an ongoing accountability and solutions-journalism series, CBS News California Investigates is working with Denise, Aaron, and experts from various fields to go beyond the sensational story and examine what we can learn from their 'American Nightmare.' Lessons from Quinn's confession-driven interrogation On March 23, 2015, Muller broke into Quinn's Vallejo home while the couple was asleep. He tied them up and drugged them before kidnapping Huskins. Muller put Huskins in the trunk of Quinn's car and then drove her to his South Lake Tahoe home, where he held her for ransom for two days and repeatedly raped her. During that time, Muller sent ransom requests to Quinn's phone, but instead of tracing those calls, investigators tried to convince Quinn to confess to killing Huskins — who was very much alive but in a living hell. "I would have been rescued, and two families would have been saved," Huskins said, pondering the alternate outcomes if police had investigated the crime instead of presuming Quinn's guilt. Quinn shared a series of excerpts from his 18-hour interrogation, which is now being used to help retrain officers. In it, his interrogators repeatedly insist, "She's dead." "His primary goal is to get a confession because he knows confessions get convictions," Aaron believes of one of his interrogators, who repeatedly accused Quinn of killing Huskins and making up the elaborate kidnapping story. "(Vallejo PD) Detective (Mat) Mustard thinks he's a human lie detector, and the training that he got makes him believe that is so." The traditional method of law enforcement interrogation dates back to the 1940s and was developed to replace the use of physical torture. In Quinn's case, Mustard created a story about what he thought happened, telling Quinn, "Whatever happened, it happened in that bedroom. It happened in bed." Then, interrogators are trained to create a high-pressure environment, often by isolating and lying to the suspect. "I've asked for my family. They tell me they don't know where they are," Quinn explained. "My family was in the police station. The only truthful thing [the detectives] said to me is, 'I don't believe you.' " He also points to FBI polygraph expert Special Agent Peter French, who he alleges also created a hostile environment and lied to Quinn, falsely claiming he failed the lie detector test. Next, interrogators are trained to minimize the seriousness of the crime. In Quinn's case, both interrogators repeatedly tell him they "know it was an accident." Finally, they attempt to make a confession seem like the best option for the suspect. For example, Vallejo Detective Mat Mustard explained to Quinn, "So now I get out my puzzle pieces, and I start figuring out, 'OK, how do I make it so you look like a monster?'" Special Agent French warned that without a confession, he would be "painted as a cold, ruthless killer." "That's a choice you're going through," Quinn explained, watching back his interrogations. "If I say it was an accident, then maybe I'll get some leniency." "What happened to me is not unique," Quinn added. "This is widely trained. Honestly, what's unique is that I didn't confess." Nationwide, nearly a third of all wrongful convictions — later exonerated by DNA — have been linked to false confessions. "The difference in my case is that I know Denise is alive, or I believe she's alive," Quinn explained. "If I piss them off, are they going to not look for her because of getting mad at me? I am desperately trying to save her. That is what I'm focused on." Traditional interrogation vs. science-based interviewing "Bad interview training played out in real life in this situation," Pierson said as he reviewed Quinn's interrogation videos with us. "These people are basically being victimized by the system simply for telling the truth." Pierson said he doesn't fault the detectives for doing what they were "trained to do" but called the technique "flawed." "There's ample evidence that we need to do better. There is a problem, but there is also a solution," Pierson said. "We can train detectives to use a more effective methodology that is also ethical." This methodology is called science-based interviewing. It was derived from research conducted by members of U.S. intelligence agencies supporting the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. Science-based interviewing has been shown to be more effective and reliable than traditional methods. Pierson has been spearheading a national effort to train law enforcement and prosecutors on this method of interviewing, which is based on scientific research and designed to improve communication with suspects, victims, and witnesses. Pierson reviewed Quinn's interrogation to demonstrate how, in his opinion, it could have been more effective with a science-based approach. For instance, when Detective Mustard tells Quinn, "I'm going to go tell them that I'm not looking for a live Denise. I'm looking for dead Denise," Pierson points out, "There is no evidence to support that conclusion, and that is part of the training. Pierson explained that a science-based interview aims to get detailed information instead of focusing on a confession. "You take a detailed statement, and you compare that to other known facts," Pierson said. According to Pierson, science-based interviewers focus on communication, with an emphasis on open-ended questions and building rapport with the suspect. This is in contrast to confession-driven interrogations, in which the interviewer remains in control and may rely on guilt-presumptive questions. "He'll stop my denials. He won't let me speak," Quinn noted, watching back his interrogation with FBI Special Agent French, who interrupts Quinn's denials, saying, "I don't want you to say a word. I need you to listen to me." "The goal is to not let me ask for an attorney and make me feel isolated and alone." "The public shaming was even more traumatizing and devastating for us than the kidnaping itself," — Denise Huskins Guilt-presumptive behavior Quinn said he believes that the detectives had already decided he was guilty when they walked into the room. "That is a problem with the training. It leads to these guilt-presumptive assumptions. It leads towards tunnel vision, leads towards confirmation bias," he said. The guilt-presumptive behavior continued when the kidnapper released Huskins. Before Vallejo police even had a chance to interview Huskins, they held a press conference accusing the couple of orchestrating a hoax. Meanwhile, their attacker continued to terrorize other families, and Huskins and Quinn lived in fear that he would come back for them or their families. They also faced widespread backlash and death threats from members of the public who believed the police. "For us, the public shaming was even more traumatizing and devastating for us than the kidnapping itself," Huskins said. "It's reasonable to know that there are bad people out there and that you could be targeted and attacked, but you hope, as a human, if something bad happens, you turn to your community and fellow humans for help, support, love, and care. And instead, we were just ripped apart and judged and shamed and every which way -- how we held ourselves, what we said, what we didn't say." It wasn't until several months later that the truth finally came to light, thanks to a rookie police detective investigating her very first case. Dublin Police Detective Misty Carausu was investigating a similar home invasion when she ultimately found the evidence, a strand of Huskins' hair attached to a pair of blacked-out swim goggles in Muller's home, that ultimately proved Huskins and Quinn were telling the truth. Yet it took a rookie detective to find evidence that veteran investigators and FBI special agents couldn't. "They could have prevented two other families from being attacked, and God knows if there are others. It's really sad," Huskins said. Muller was eventually convicted in both the Vallejo and Dublin crimes. He would later confess to at least one more home invasion during the period that the world was accusing Huskins and Quinn of orchestrating a hoax. Still, the Vallejo police detectives and the FBI agents who investigated their case refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. "They continued to blame us and say we couldn't have come up with any other conclusion based on what was presented to us," Huskins added. "And what else are we supposed to think when the victims acted this way or did this or didn't do this?" None of the agents who handled the couple's case were ever reprimanded; instead, "the agents handling our case have been promoted," Quinn said. "The fact that no one's been held accountable or [there haven't been] any policy changes are the reasons why things like this keep happening." "American Nightmare": The next chapter Released in January 2024, the Netflix documentary "American Nightmare" highlighted Huskins and Quinn's sensational story. It led Nick Borgess, a police chief in the small coastal town of Seaside, California, to reach out to the couple, hoping to restore their faith in law enforcement. Borgess was the first to invite them to speak in front of law enforcement. That's where they met Pierson, whose jurisdiction includes South Lake Tahoe, where Muller kept Huskins captive. Pierson has now incorporated the couple into his science-based interviewing training. "We were kind of ignored, disregarded, treated as a nuisance," Huskins said. "So we've spent a decade really just shouting, trying to get our voice back, trying to reclaim our trauma and really share the truth of what happened to us." Working with Huskins and Quinn and using science-based interviewing, Borgess and Pierson got Muller to confess to even more crimes from behind bars. Muller's timeline of confessed crimes now dates back to 1993, when he was just 16 years old. "The reality is this case was a catastrophic failure by the FBI. They didn't actually do a single thing to catch Muller. They spent their time going after us." Quinn said. "Now, we know there are (at least) two other families that Mueller terrorized and attacked because these investigators had blinders on." A decade after their "American Nightmare," Huskins and Quinn are back in front of the media, but this time, they have law enforcement on their side. "We are so grateful to have found a team and law enforcement who respects us, who values us as victims and is willing to work with us and collaborate with us," Huskins said at a recent press conference. "This can be and should be a really good learning opportunity." The science-based interviewing approach is now the standard interrogation training for new detectives in California. However, Pierson sponsored a bill in 2021 that would have required all California officers to be trained in science-based interviewing, including veterans in law enforcement who are still using the traditional approach. The bill unanimously passed the State Senate and Assembly, but Governor Newsom vetoed the bill, citing the estimated cost of implementing the training. Pierson argues that each wrongful conviction costs taxpayers much more than the cost of implementing the training. He is hoping to try again and reintroduce the bill, this time with Huskins and Quinn by his side. Not everyone is a fan of shifting away from traditional interrogation techniques. "If you've been trained to do something a particular way and it's worked for you, there is going to be some real resistance to changing that," Pierson explains. "But I also know this is a better way that is more effective." We first interviewed Pierson back in 2022 after DNA evidence revealed his office wrongly convicted a man based on a false confession from an interrogation. "Ten years ago, if you would have asked me, would someone confess to a murder they had nothing to do with it, I would not have been able to believe that just based on my experience of training," Pierson explained. He believes that all law enforcement will eventually understand the benefit of science-based interviewing. Most in law enforcement associate traditional methods of interrogation with the Reid Technique, created in the 1940s by a polygraph expert and former Chicago police officer, John E. Reid. "The Reid Technique teaches investigators not to make promises of leniency, not to threaten the subject with physical harm or inevitable consequences, not to conduct excessively long interrogations, not deny the subject any of their rights, Joseph Buckley, president of John E. Reid and Associates, explained. He argues proper training of the Reid Technique includes science-based training, adding that coercive behaviors are not part of the official traditional technique. "In almost every false confession case you find, you can point out coercive behaviors that were utilized in the interrogation, Buckley said. "I think, in many cases, the coercive behaviors are due to the pressure to solve the crime, and, in some instances, due to the frustration of the investigator." Buckley added that "numerous false confessions occur after unacceptably lengthy interrogations. We recommend that if, at the 3 or 4-hour mark, the subject remains adamant in their denials, the investigator should re-evaluate the situation." Quinn's interrogation lasted 18 hours. Law enforcement response Neither the Vallejo Police Department nor (retired) Detective Mat Mustard responded to our requests for comment on this story. We specifically asked both Vallejo police and the FBI about their current interrogation training methods and what, if any, policies have changed since Quinn's interrogations. The FBI and Special Agent French did not address our specific questions. However, the agency but did provide a previously issued response: "The FBI provides support to our law enforcement partners and conducts thorough investigations to protect the people we serve. All investigations are conducted in a manner that is respectful to victims' right to privacy and court records detail the efforts of the personnel who investigate our cases. This investigation involved a number of FBI personnel who were committed to uncovering the truth by leveraging many techniques and exploring all possibilities of this case. And despite what has been publicly alleged by some, the FBI determined that no conflict of interest existed. Ultimately, the investigation resulted in the successful conviction of Matthew Muller for federal kidnapping and a sentence of 40 years for the crime and a separate conviction and sentence for state charges." The agency stated it needed more time to respond to our specific questions.
