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.Despite the high cost of the damage, experts believe insurance companies should have no problem compensating their customers.According to Standard and Poor’s, the insurers are starting 2025 with comfortable reserves thanks to strong financial results over the last two years.They have also significantly reduced their presence in the Californian regions that are highly exposed to fire risk, and are also well diversified.The JPMorgan analysts see things the same way, insisting that, at this stage, it expects “the vast majority of losses stemming from the wildfires to be concentrated in homeowners’ insurance,” and a “significantly lesser amount” in commercial fire and personal auto.- Insurance ‘exodus’ -“There’s been a mass exodus of big players from the market in these parts of California,” Ben Keys, a real estate and finance professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told a conference Friday.”We’ve seen enormous non-renewals recently,” he said. On Wednesday, California’s insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, announced that homeowners in areas affected by and around the fires would be protected for a year against non-renewal and cancellation of coverage. This type of measure protected more than a million contracts in 2024.In 1968, the coastal state set up a public insurance scheme, called FAIR, for homeowners who could no longer find a private insurer.This “band-aid” was supposed to be temporary while people moved from one insurance policy to another, but has now expanded well beyond its intended use, lamented Keys, pointing out that its exposure had risen from $50 billion in 2018 to more than $450 billion today.To bring companies back on board, Commissioner Lara has also initiated a reform process authorizing them to increase premiums on condition that they do not apply any geographical exclusions.There is no longer any question of “cherry-picking” to select the best contracts, said Susan Crawford, an expert on climate and geopolitics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.”The acceleration in ferocious weather events… should trigger awareness that actually things do need to change,” she said. “We need some measure of political adjustments in reaction to rapid climate change.”In the meantime, Californians — and perhaps Americans nationwide — should prepare for an increase in premiums; 2025 has only just begun, and the previous year was marked by some destructive disasters.According to modelling by the specialist website AccuWeather, hurricanes Milton and Helene caused $160-$180 billion and $225-$250 billion in damage respectively. On Wednesday, it estimated the total cost of the Los Angeles fires so far at between $135 billion and $150 billion.The State Department published a new national strategy on climate change Friday, stating that climate-related disasters like winter storms and hurricanes had caused $182.7 billion in economic losses in 2024 — twice as much as in 2023.

A US judge held former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court on Friday for continuing to defame two Georgia election workers.Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, was ordered by a federal jury in Washington in December 2023 to pay nearly $148 million to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss for repeatedly making false claims that they engaged in 2020 election fraud.At a court hearing in Washington on Friday, District Judge Beryl Howell found Giuliani in contempt and threatened him with potential fines if he continues to make defamatory remarks about the pair.It was the second time this week the 80-year-old Giuliani was found in contempt of court.A district judge in New York held him in contempt on Monday for failing to reveal information about assets he has been ordered to hand over to Freeman and Moss.Giuliani attacked Howell following the hearing in Washington, calling her a “mockery of a judge” and saying she is “dying to give me a prison sentence.””I shouldn’t be the one that’s paying fines,” he told reporters. “I shouldn’t be the one in contempt, she should be.”Giuliani was a key figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. A former New York prosecutor, he has been disbarred over his false election claims.Giuliani, who has filed for bankruptcy, has been ordered to surrender his $6 million New York apartment, a 1980 Mercedes Benz convertible, jewelry, luxury watches, and valuable collectible items including a jersey signed by baseball legend Joe DiMaggio.Giuliani was found guilty of defaming the two women as they took part in a vote count in the swing state of Georgia after the presidential election in 2020.Using a video showing the two women passing an object — later revealed to be a mint — the former New York mayor claimed they were exchanging a USB drive “like vials of heroin or cocaine” to rig the results.Freeman and Moss, who are Black, told the jury during the defamation trial that Giuliani’s false accusations had upended their lives and made them the target of racist threats.An eight-person federal jury awarded Freeman and Moss more than $16 million each for defamation, $20 million each for emotional distress and $75 million in punitive damages.

Winds calmed Friday around Los Angeles, providing a fleeting window of opportunity in a firefighting battle against five major blazes wreaking havoc across the city.At least 10 people have died as flames ripped through neighborhoods, razing thousands of homes in one of the worst disasters ever to hit California, with one estimate suggesting the bill could hit $150 billion.As the scale of the damage to America’s second-biggest city started to come into focus, Angelenos grappled with heart-rending ruin.”I lost everything. My house burned down and I lost everything,” Hester Callul, who reached a shelter after fleeing her Altadena home, told AFP.As fears of looting and crime grow, California Governor Gavin Newsom deployed the National Guard to bolster law enforcement. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna imposed a nighttime curfew in some areas.”This curfew will be strictly enforced and is being taken to enhance public safety, protect property and prevent any burglaries or looting in the area that the residents have evacuated,” he said.Luna said anyone who falls foul of the rule could be jailed.”We are not screwing around with this,” he said.The five separate fires have so far burned more than 35,000 acres (14,000 hectares), California’s fire agency reported.Authorities have said it was too early to know the cause of the blazes.- ‘Still very dangerous’ -A temporary lull in winds has enabled progress in tackling the fires.The biggest of the blazes has ripped through more than 20,000 acres of the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood, where firefighters said they were starting to get the fire under control.By Friday eight percent of its perimeter was contained — meaning it can’t spread any further in that direction.The Eaton fire in the Altadena area was three percent checked, with almost 14,000 acres scorched and key infrastructure — including communication towers — threatened.A third fire that exploded Thursday afternoon near Calabasas and the wealthy Hidden Hills enclave, home to celebrities like Kim Kardashian, added to the feeling of encirclement.”You just feel surrounded,” one woman told a local broadcaster.After a massive response to the blaze, including retardant drops from planes and helicopters dumping vast quantities of water, the fire was 35 percent surrounded, firefighters said on Friday.But federal emergency chiefs warned the situation is “still very dangerous” and the reprieve from intense gusts that spread embers will not last.”It is still very dynamic. The winds have died down today, but as I just got a weather briefing… the winds are going to increase again in the coming days,” said Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”The beauty of the wind dying down is that they can get better control over the fires, but it also doesn’t blow the smoke out,” she told a White House briefing.- ‘Heartbroken’ -AFP journalists surveyed the Pacific Palisades and Malibu via helicopter, witnessing mile after mile of obliteration.”This is crazy… All these homes, gone,” said pilot Albert Azouz.On highly coveted Malibu oceanfront plots, skeletal frames of buildings indicated the fire’s power, with many multimillion-dollar mansions vanishing entirely.Socialite and hotel heiress Paris Hilton was among those whose homes were lost.”Heartbroken beyond words,” she wrote on Instagram.”Sitting with my family, watching the news, and seeing our home in Malibu burn to the ground on live TV is something no one should ever have to experience.The fires could be the costliest ever recorded, with AccuWeather estimating total damage and loss between $135 billion and $150 billion.Beyond the immediate carnage, the fires disrupted life for millions: schools were closed, hundreds of thousands were without power and major events were canceled or, in the case of an NFL playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings, moved.Meteorologist Mike Woofford of the National Weather Center told AFP winds would lessen Friday and Saturday, offering a vital opportunity to firefighters.”We’re seeing a little bit of a decrease now, but more so this afternoon dropping off, and then not much wind tomorrow, until later in the day,” he said.”For sure, good news,” he said, but cautioned it remained dry and winds were expected to return.Wildfires occur naturally, but scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather and changing the dynamics of the blazes.Two wet years in southern California have given way to a very dry one, leaving ample fuel on the ground primed to burn.