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The Wirecutter Show
The True Cost of Recovering from the LA Wildfires, Part 3
00:31:50
In part three, we examine the costs of recovering from a disaster, why you probably need more insurance, and how to become your own fierce advocate.
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- [00:01]
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Gregory Hahn
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Drake May
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- [00:27]
Gregory Hahn
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- [00:32]
Christine Cyrclassette
This is the third episode in a three part series about the LA wildfires. A look at the aftermath and the process of recovery one year later. We recommend you listen to this series in order so if you haven't heard parts one and two yet, you can find them in our feed labeled the True Cost of Recovering from the LA Wildfires.
- [00:57]
Mike Cohen
So Woodbury is one of our east west running streets here.
- [01:02]
Christine Cyrclassette
That's Mike Cohen again, my colleague and deals writer for Wirecutter. He lost his home last January in the LA wildfires. He's showing me our executive producer and co host Rosie Guerin and producer Abigail Kiel around Altadena in December 2025.
- [01:18]
Mike Cohen
And to the left there's where we had the recovery center, like the disaster relief center. That's where fema, Army Corps, everybody set up in a big tent on the left this is core. That's where they're showing us a bunch of different ADUs and different modular homes that you can purchase, trying to help people with the cost of rebuilding to buy an adu, plop it on their plot and then live in it while their house is being rebuilt.
- [01:51]
Christine Cyrclassette
What Mike just mentioned there, the ADUs, that stands for accessory dwelling units, they kind of look like tiny homes. ADUs are pretty common in LA. People use them as offices or guest rooms. Using insurance money to buy an ADU is an option for people who've lost their homes like Mike. They can put one on their land to live in while they rebuild. Are the people that are doing that, are they at all concerned about the sort of remaining toxicity in the soil blowing around and breathing that in? Is that something that is kind of a risk you're taking if you come back and live on your property while you're rebuilding before everything has been remediated?
- [02:33]
Mike Cohen
Yeah, that's been a real concern for a lot of the people, even people whose homes are still standing, people who've come back to live in the area are raising that concern with everyone of, well, I can only afford to live outside of Altadena for so many months with additional living expenses. But if I'm coming back to Altadena for the next couple of years living in a trailer, what am I living through?
- [03:04]
Christine Cyrclassette
Mike and his family have been living in a rental apartment about 20 minutes away from Altadena. They're still figuring out what to do next. Attempt to rebuild or try to sell and move on. It's a tough decision, especially because Mike can't really afford either option and his time to make a decision is running out. The help he's getting from insurance to pay for his rental won't last much longer.
- [03:29]
Mike Cohen
Our additional living expenses are only for a couple more months and the moratorium on our mortgage, whereby we didn't have to pay each month, is also going to expire next month.
- [03:41]
Christine Cyrclassette
So you're going to reach a point soon where you're going to be needing to pay rent to live somewhere and you're going to need to pay the mortgage on your home that burned down.
- [03:52]
Mike Cohen
Yeah, I don't know what we're going to be able to do. It's going to be up to the finances and the amount of time that we have is running out. And I think that that's the predicament that most people in Altadena find themselves.
- [04:13]
Christine Cyrclassette
I'm Christine Cyrclassette and this is the Wirecutter Show. When we set out to make this series, we really wanted to focus on the lessons that Mike and our colleague Gregory Hahn had learned a year into recovering from the LA wildfires. What were the things that stuck out to them once the dust had settled? What are the pieces of advice they wish someone had given them? In the first episode, we learned what Mike and Gregory each lost in the fires and how crucial their communities were in providing them help and support in the immediate aftermath. Last episode, they shared advice for some of the pre work you can do ahead of time that could help in the wake of a natural disaster. Things like documenting your possessions now and making sure you understand what's covered by your homeowner's or renter's policy. Today we're going to spend some time talking about the true cost of recovery, the money, the time, and the emotional toll that finding your feet after a natural disaster can take. We'll expand on how to make sure you have enough insurance and also what insurance could never cover. We're also going to hear about some of the ways Mike and Gregory have learned to advocate for themselves and why if you're ever in a disaster, you might need to be prepared to do the same. More when we come back.
- [05:44]
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- [06:45]
Gregory Hahn
The New York Times app has all this stuff that you may not have seen.
- [06:48]
Christine Cyrclassette
The way the tabs are at the top with all of the different sections.
- [06:51]
LinkedIn Jobs Advertiser
I can immediately navigate to something that matches what I'm feeling.
- [06:55]
Christine Cyrclassette
I go to games always doing the mini, doing the wordle. I loved how much content it exposed me to things that I never would have thought to turn to a news app for.
- [07:03]
Gregory Hahn
This app is essential.
- [07:06]
Christine Cyrclassette
The New York Times app.
- [07:07]
LinkedIn Jobs Advertiser
All of the times all in one place.
- [07:10]
Christine Cyrclassette
Download it now@nytimes.com app if you were to write yourself a letter today from two years ago about insurance, what would be the main things that you would say to yourself?
- [07:27]
Mike Cohen
Get more yeah.
- [07:30]
Christine Cyrclassette
When I talked to Gregory and Mike, they both told me that over the last year they had incurred costs that may never be covered by insurance costs like replacing items, lost wages and for Gregory, covering repairs and upgrades to his home. For Mike, though, the financial aftermath of the Eaton fire is staggering.
- [07:50]
Mike Cohen
So like most Americans, we are insured, but we are underinsured. In our scenario, we bought our home, we put about 10% down in order to get our mortgage. The insurance only covers the actual structure, doesn't cover the piece of land because they presume that you can sell that. So when you're looking at that coverage, a lot of people would say make sure that it's at least half, if not more of the total purchase price of your home. We got a little less than half.
- [08:21]
Christine Cyrclassette
The amount of coverage you should have on your home. Isn't always straightforward. It will depend on a number of factors. But ideally it should cover the cost to rebuild your house and any structures on your land. And, and that may not be the price you paid for your property or its current market value. And because building costs tend to go up over time, it might be more than you're currently insured for. Many Americans do not have enough home insurance. Estimates show that as high as. Almost two out of three homeowners across the country are underinsured, just like Mike. This means that if their home was destroyed today, the amount of coverage in their policy would not cover the full cost of rebuilding their home. Mike's coverage for a total loss. The situation he's in does not match what prospective builders are quoting him to rebuild on the same lot. And this situation is what many people in Altadena and the Palisades now find themselves in. According to the Insurance Information Institute, the cost of rebuilding nationwide has gone up by nearly 30% over the past five years because of things like supply chain disruptions, rising building material costs, and labor shortages. And in the wake of a natural disaster like the LA wildfires, those costs tend to rise even further because so many people need to rebuild at the same time. For Mike, the difference in what he can get from insurance and what it would cost to rebuild is hundreds of thousands of dollars. And he still has to pay his mortgage for the home that burned down. Mike's other option is to take the insurance payout and sell the land.
- [10:03]
Mike Cohen
I don't think that plot of land in a burned down or flooded out or mud slit area is going to be worth that amount to cover the difference.
- [10:15]
Christine Cyrclassette
This spot Mike finds himself in, it's called the insurance gap.
- [10:20]
Mike Cohen
Right now we're stuck in that gap. If we take the insurance money and try to pay off as much of our mortgage and sell our plot, we're still down about a quarter of our investment. So then we have to rebuild, but we can't afford to yet. Not to the house that we had and not really to a house that we could sell for the original purchase price either. So we're stuck.
- [10:49]
Christine Cyrclassette
One thing that anyone should consider doing right now, no matter where you live, whether you own or rent or, or what risks you face, is to check in with your insurance agent annually to make sure, you have enough coverage. This may sound like a hassle or expensive, but it might not cost that much more per month and it could end up saving you financially. If you ever are in a total loss situation, and if you've remodeled or upgraded your home in other ways that increase its value, you should also make sure you have the right amount of coverage. Stop and ask yourself a could you afford to rebuild after a loss? The insurance gap is one example of a financial cost in the aftermath of a disaster. But the true cost of recovery includes much more than finances. My colleague Gregory Hahn says that for him it included reckoning with a new sense of self.
- [11:49]
Gregory Hahn
I wake up and I don't know where I am, what the day is, and sometimes who I am. That's a real weird sensation. The edges of what I think defines me have been softened in a way that I'm still trying to get a foothold. There's a survivor's guilt that resonates through my life too. It feels weird sometimes having having good moments at home when I know just down the street somebody's like looking at where their couch used to be. They used to cuddle up with their kids. And.
- [12:32]
Christine Cyrclassette
The grief and how much that grief interrupted his normal state of being and productivity has also surprised Gregory.
- [12:40]
Gregory Hahn
I didn't work that much while I was displaced because my full time job was navigating everything to try to get us back home and then also being a caretaker to my wife. And it's been really hard to get back into this mind state like that. Those things are that important, like the work is important, you know, I mean, yeah, I have to make a living, but it's really hard to care about those things when you've escaped such instability and possible death. Some things just don't seem that important anymore, but, you know, we're all just trying to get by.
- [13:22]
Christine Cyrclassette
Gregory is a freelance writer. He's not employed full time by wirecutter or anywhere else. And it's the same for his wife, Emily. They've been able to make it work. But now Gregory is feeling the weight of instability. We talked last time about the cost he incurred in the aftermath of the fire repairing his home. How are you covering those costs?
- [13:42]
Gregory Hahn
We are dipping into savings. So my wife and I, before everything went pear shaped, we were doing well and we started saving for a rainy day and also for retirement. And that rainy day came in the form of fire. Now I'm feeling completely unstable and feeling really, to be frank, very frightened about what my senior years are going to be like because now we're in a situation like, okay, now we have to worry about property tax, now we have to worry about the home insurance, and how are we going to afford that? In a climate unstable landscape of possible home catching on fire again, the possibility.
- [14:24]
Christine Cyrclassette
Of a future disaster looms over Gregory and Mike in their decisions. Is it a good idea to rebuild in Altadena to stay here at all? They're tough questions to answer, but at least for now, both of them feel like Altadena is home. Still, though, Gregory is worried about his lack of a financial safety net, especially now that he's dipped into his savings. That's one of his major takeaways from the last year. If you can save money, any amount, you can, because maybe it'll help cover the costs of a hotel room in an evacuation or pay out of pocket to test for contamination you're worried about. Mike, on the other hand, feels a little complicated about the idea of an emergency fund being enough for most people.
- [15:11]
Mike Cohen
There is no proper amount of a rainy day fund. That would be the safety net that we were looking for. That's what insurance is for.
- [15:23]
Christine Cyrclassette
The gap, Mike says, can't be closed with a few months worth of expenses saved. He knows people who have started GoFundMes to help close that gap, or taken out loans with the Small Business Administration or sba, a federal organization that offers low interest loans in disaster areas. Mike could take out an additional loan to help close his gap, but this would add to overall monthly costs that are already becoming overwhelming between paying rent and his outstanding mortgage. Mike's recommendation goes back to what he talked about last episode, that knowing your insurance policy and making sure it's enough is crucial.
- [15:59]
Mike Cohen
The best thing that we can do is unfortunately increase your premium and see if they can be that rainy day fund. You can afford the extra $42 a month. Somehow you can't afford the six figures of destruction and rebuild costs that insurance won't cover because you saved $42 a month.
- [16:28]
Christine Cyrclassette
There is one other option for covering the gap that some survivors are hopeful for a lawsuit. The power company Southern California Edison, or sce, is currently being sued by the federal government, Los Angeles county, as well as other cities and individual victims for negligence in maintaining its equipment. In Eaton Canyon, where the fire started, SCE has denied it was responsible for starting the fire. They are offering a voluntary compensation program to qualifying victims, compensation that could come much sooner than the results of the lawsuit, which may not go to court for at least another year. But waiting for the outcome of that lawsuit could mean higher payouts for victims. Not every natural disaster will have an accompanying lawsuit or someone to blame. The Eaton fire could. But even so, the waiting game is part of the true cost of recovery. Navigating the insurance process has been more complicated and arduous than Mike or Gregory would have ever imagined a year ago. Their last 12 months have been a steep learning curve. It hasn't been easy.
- [17:59]
Mike Cohen
It is an Olympic level marathon. And it means little things like the car is completely totaled, it's been burned. It's a crisp. My insurance payout from my car insurance says, oh, this is how much we think your car is worth. Now I have to go back and look up Kelley Blue Book and I have to go around and find through Cargurus and other things, other prices so that I can say no, I think this is how much it's worth. So unfortunately, you have to be your own advocate to protect your own interests.
- [18:35]
Christine Cyrclassette
Be prepared to be your own advocate. That's the last big piece of advice that Mike and Gregory have taken away from this year. We'll talk more about that and what it means after the break.
- [18:58]
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- [20:04]
Christine Cyrclassette
Gregory and Mike both told me over and over again how much work it was to manage their affairs after the fire. Both quickly learned that they had to negotiate with their insurance companies for everything. And not just that they had to ask the same questions and make the same claims repeatedly. Sometimes those negotiations were collaborative and Supportive. Other times they were frustrating and adversarial. Gregory and Mike called it another full time job. An exhausting, emotionally draining full time job. And it's not a job either of them wanted to do, but it's one they say you should be prepared for if you find yourself in a position like theirs. I should mention there are services and organizations out there that can become basically your case manager after a disaster. But these services aren't always free. So if you take the job on yourself, they have a few suggestions.
- [20:59]
Mike Cohen
One of the first things we learned was don't take their first offer. That was as true for the car as it is for our ale, our rent, negotiations with our mortgage and them holding our insurance money. All of these things are parts where it's not like these people are services that work for you. You are contracted with them, but they're there to protect their own interests.
- [21:32]
Christine Cyrclassette
Okay, so don't take the first offer. Consider these interactions with insurance and other agencies as what they are. Negotiations. Gregory says that it can help to let go of any timidity, embarrassment, or shame.
- [21:45]
Gregory Hahn
I'm pretty much an introvert in many ways, but. But when it came to the home, I became an extrovert. I became very forceful of like, not unkind or, you know, rude or anything. But I was like, I'm going through this process and I will fight you tooth and nail to make sure that my wife returns to a safe home.
- [22:03]
Christine Cyrclassette
This process really brought out that forceful side of Gregory. Forceful but not mean. That's an important distinction. If you ever find yourself in this type of situation, consider that it might be best to stay on good terms with the folks you're negotiating with.
- [22:19]
Mike Cohen
Insurance adjusters are people too. We've actually had an amazing time with our insurance adjuster and she actually became one of the very first people that we shared our pregnancy status with. And she kept track of, oh, you guys are in your second trimester now. I know how that is. Get back to me when you can. Like, these people are good people enough. It's just the systems and the positions that they put us in can become adversarial. I always try to lead with compassion, the benefit of the doubt, and reaching out to them on a human to human level.
- [22:56]
Christine Cyrclassette
Human to human also means whenever possible, try to meet face to face. Gregory told me that the meetings he had in person, as opposed to over the phone or via email or often went smoother and resulted in better outcomes. It's not always an option, but when it is, do it in person. It sounds exhausting. It sounds like you said it's like a marathon. It sounds like it takes an immense amount of executive function to stay organized and on task. How do you tackle that?
- [23:27]
Gregory Hahn
The first several months we, my wife felt overwhelmed and I said, let's just break this up day to day and we'll complete one thing every day and one thing we complete whether it moves us forward or not. At least we made an effort.
- [23:42]
Mike Cohen
I'm lucky that my employment is Sunday through Thursday, so my weekend is Friday, Saturday. That gives me one business day where all the administrative offices are open. So Friday is FEMA Fridays for me. I call FEMA in the morning. I'm probably on hold for a number of hours. So during those hours I can also call the SBA and or I can be drafting an email to my mortgage company. It's staying on top of every email that I send or portal message through the Small Business Administration's website and following up every two to three days. It's staying ahead of my mortgage company because I have to check in with them every month, proving that my house is still destroyed and I'm not living in it.
- [24:26]
Christine Cyrclassette
Mike and Gregory also recommended keeping extensive notes. Gregory has kept a spreadsheet of whom he's contacted and when he took screenshots of portal messages with insurance, Mike recorded phone conversations when he could to go back to and listen to later.
- [24:41]
Mike Cohen
So we've gone back and re listened to a number of conversations in order to say, oh, they said that we can apply for rebuilding. No, no, they said refinancing. No, wait, let's go back. Oh, it's actually both rebuilding and refinancing.
- [24:53]
Christine Cyrclassette
Make sure you ask permission to record phone calls. Different states have different rules about recording.
- [24:59]
Mike Cohen
Yeah. Something we do is often when we get off the phone with our, like, insurance adjuster, we'll say, can you send us an email in writing summarizing everything we've done? Or I'll just say, hey, is it okay if I record this? And I'll have AI send us an email summary of everything we've discussed and you can agree or disagree with it, but I just want to make sure that we're both looking at the same facts in black and white.
- [25:20]
Christine Cyrclassette
Finally, a great use for AI.
- [25:23]
Gregory Hahn
Yeah, yeah. AI has actually been useful in this situation.
- [25:29]
Christine Cyrclassette
We've tossed out all a lot of advice in this series and we'll list all of it in the show notes for this episode. One other detail about becoming your own advocate is that your friends and neighbors and the people around you might not advocate for themselves. In the same way you do. Gregory found this difficult in the beginning of his year.
- [25:51]
Gregory Hahn
I think the work that I've done for Wirecutter and for other outlets, I've been asked to be an expert in things. I think initially when this happened, I went into expert mode, researcher mode, like just really delving into what I needed to do and then using that information to try to help other people.
- [26:13]
Christine Cyrclassette
He would frustratedly watch neighbors take less than they could from insurance companies or skip expensive tests for contaminants they couldn't see or smell, claiming the risks were overblown anyway. Eventually he realized the best way he could help was to just listen.
- [26:29]
Gregory Hahn
A lot of them are masking their concerns because they're not able to afford to be careful. And once I really digested that, I started being much more caring about how I delivered that message. I hear you. I see this is really expensive. Maybe we can do one test, you know, spend the hundred dollars to do this. It's not always a possibility. And that's where we're all left floating is like Altadena is a very middle class neighborhood. So I have to recognize my frustration is valid just as much as their response. And I'm going to try to meet them halfway.
- [27:13]
Christine Cyrclassette
Many of Gregory's neighbors are elderly, living on fixed incomes and the cost for testing and remediation are for far beyond what they can afford. Gregory says now he tries to lead by example, sharing information and resources of the services he's used and listening to the concerns and decisions of his neighbors before sharing his own. It's easy to listen to Gregory and Mike's stories and feel far removed to think this is someone else's life and something like this won't happen to me. But the thing about disasters is they can happen to anyone. And what you do now may have an outsized impact on your future. Make sure you understand your insurance policy, read it, look up terms you don't understand and get enough of it. Digitize your important documents. Be brutally honest about your climate risks and modify your home accordingly if you can. And if you do experience a natural disaster, remember that you will have to become your own fierce advocate. Then there's our original takeaway. Invest in your community before a disaster. We want to revisit that point.
- [28:28]
Mike Cohen
Turn right here. So this is Emerson Way. This is my block.
- [28:34]
Christine Cyrclassette
The tour we took with Mike through Altadena ended at his property on Emerson Way, a small cul de sac block in the middle of West Altadena.
- [28:42]
Rosie Guerin
How does it feel driving back here?
- [28:47]
Mike Cohen
Sad. Like a Shell of what it was. No houses on our block survived. This is my plot over here on the right. That's Lisa's property, where she was when she called our house. Yeah, our whole block is gone. That was Kate and Taylor's house. Our neighbor, they had just had a kid. That was Sue's house. Been in her family for generations. Daryl lived next door to that. He grew up in Altadena and said that he knew our house better than we did when we first moved in because he said he grew up playing there when he was a kid.
- [29:32]
Christine Cyrclassette
Like him, all of Mike's neighbors are still displaced from Altadena. He doesn't know where most of them ended up or if they plan to come back, but he's still in communication with many of them. And he's met even more through fire survivor groups like the Eaton Fire Survivors Network. These connections specifically with other people who've been through what he's been through, who are going through what he's going through. Mike says they've been a bedrock of his year.
- [30:01]
Mike Cohen
We have this scar now. It's invisible, but we walk with it and it's ever present. The good news is that there are other people out there who also have that same scar, and they understand in ways that people who don't have that scar can't. When I connect with other fire survivors who are going through the same things as I'm going through, they get the frustration, the grief, the gratitude, the anger, and the loss in ways that I'm not able to convey. But with them, I don't have to because they just get it. So the advice is, the better you can know your community before that catastrophe happens, the stronger those bonds will will be because it will bring you all together. But it would be great if it brought you together and you didn't have to remember people's names for the first time.
- [31:01]
Christine Cyrclassette
Gregory has also gotten closer with people in his community. He and his wife spent Thanksgiving across the street with their neighbors. He's also gained a new level of appreciation for his wider circle.
- [31:13]
Gregory Hahn
I remember one evening we hosted a group of friends to have a seafood boil. And for that few hours, I forgot we were displaced because we were surrounded by friends and we were just laughing and eating and having a wonderful time. The effects of that evening lasted several days because I remembered that people still care and were looking out for us in ways that were unknown to us until it happened. I look back at what happened, has happened and continues to happen as a reminder of like this life we live is the sum of so many other interactions that pay off in ways that you just couldn't expect. I mean, there was people who showed up like, I didn't know that they cared that much about us. And I don't mean that like, you know, in a flippant way. It was really like, wow, would have. I made that effort for you. Thank you.
- [32:23]
Christine Cyrclassette
Back in Altadena, we drive along a few more blocks with Mike. Although many of the lots are empty, I'm surprised by how many are under construction. What I hear is a lot of construction. I hear a lot of, you know, circular saws and hammers. And we've seen there's so much devastation here, so many empty lots. There are also a lot of lots with people on them doing different things, working. Yeah. We stopped to talk with two Altadena residents walking a dog called Ozzy. They'd lived through the fire and had already moved back. This new construction in the neighborhood they said, made them feel more optimistic. Back at Mike's plot, my producer Abigail asked Mike, if there were no financial constraints, would he want to move back and rebuild?
- [33:17]
Mike Cohen
If the money wasn't the thing that was making the decision for us and I had the funds to rebuild, yeah, we would have started rebuilding already. I'm not sure what I'd be moving back to, but somebody's going to come live here and somebody's going to rebuild.
- [33:42]
Rosie Guerin
This series was reported and hosted by Christine Cyrclassette. The Wirecutter show is executive produced by me, Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. This series was fact checked by Cole Lewison and the audio was mixed by Katie McMurran. Engineering support from Matty Masiello and Nick Pittman. Our interview with Gregory and Mike was recorded by Tim Moore at York Recording in Los Angeles. Original music for this series by Marian Lozano, Dan Powell, Alicia Ba Itoub, Rowan Ni Misto, Katherine Anderson and Pat McCusker. Special thanks to Harry Sawyers and Jen Gushew for editing Gregory's original article and to Daniel Ramirez from New York Times Audio. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor in chief. We thank you so much for listening.
- [34:41]
Christine Cyrclassette
Sa.