Insurance Commissioner States Homeowners Rights for Fire Victims

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published April 28, 2008 at 1:16 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner says insurance companies cannot force owners who lost their homes to rebuild on the same site. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner says insurance companies cannot force owners who lost their homes to rebuild on the same site. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Poizner has issued a legal opinion to clarify how fire victims can use their insurance money, if they don't want to rebuild their homes on the site where their old home burned down.

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Poizner: When your house burns down, one thing you might not want to have to deal with is all the hassles involved in building something from scratch. It's really important that homeowners know that they have the option they can take the proceeds from their existing insurance policy and use it to buy an existing home some place else.

Poizner says homeowners are entitled to extended coverage they've paid for, as well as replacement costs, to move elsewhere. However they cannot buy a less expensive home and keep the difference.

The insurance industry has paid out $1.7 billion for claims made after last October's wildfires. Four thousand of 39,000 claims are still pending.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.