Agencies
The fires ravaging upmarket Los Angeles districts Pacific Palisades and Malibu will be the most expensive ever to hit California, according to experts, who expect premiums to rise in a region already abandoned by many insurers.
Analysts at JPMorgan estimated that the total cost of damage and insured damage had doubled in less than 24 hours to $50 billion and $20 billion respectively. And the flames were still advancing on several fronts Friday. These record levels already far outstrip the 2017 Tubbs fire and the 2018 Camp fire, whose estimates of insured damage have climbed, according to sources, to as much as $16 billion.
The value of the houses makes all the difference: At this stage, more than 10,000 buildings have been destroyed this week, the vast majority of them homes worth an average of $3 million.
By comparison, some 18,000 buildings were destroyed in the Camp fire in 2018, but the average house was only around $500,000. David Burt, the founder and director of DeltaTerra, a consultancy firm specializing in climate-related financial risks, estimates that the market value of the 15,400 homes in Pacific Palisades is close to $13.5 billion.