The state is being asked to speed up insurance claims from Lāhainā fire victims.
Access to damaged properties has been described as a common barrier in the insurance process following the August fires.
That was a complaint at a Thursday informational briefing the Senate Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection held at the Lāhainā Civic Center.
The committee wanted an update on the current state of insurance claims submitted by residents and businesses affected by the fire that devastated Lāhainā last month.
Mahealani Strong, an insurance agent with Insurance Associates, said at the briefing that adjusters were ready to assess damaged properties just days after the fire but could not get any government agency to help get them in Lāhainā.
“The problem we’re having is access. Since day four I have been … trying to get a consolidated effort, a group, a van maybe, with 15 adjusters. And we had that ready to go within the first 10 days,” Strong told the committee. “All we needed was one road we can go down, and these adjusters were willing to adjust every single home regardless of carrier or assignment.”
Strong said her company is the only brick-and-mortar, independent insurance agency in Lāhainā, and its building is still standing. However, she added that access to their company building has been difficult — even though it’s just on the other side of a barrier blocking off the destroyed town.
“I have families stranded in California because their building is still standing in Kahoma but they can’t get access to verify there’s smoke damage in it,” Strong said.
In the meantime, displaced residents are running out of funds, so time is of the essence, Strong said.
Officials from the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ Insurance Division were also at the informational briefing and said that, while it regulates the state’s insurance market, it doesn’t have the authority to give adjusters access to closed areas.
“It doesn’t really fall under our purview. When the area is closed off, we can’t force (Maui) County to open it up for us,” said Jerry Bump, DCCA’s chief deputy insurance commissioner, at the committee briefing. “We’ve been trying to tell people to be patient, hoping that the properties will start to be opened up and that people can then gain access to their properties.”
Maui County has developed a phased re-opening for West Maui starting Oct. 8, but partial access is already being granted for some businesses and residents.
Insurance Commissioner Gordon Ito was not at the Thursday briefing.
Sen. Angus McKelvey, who represents West Maui and lost his home in Lāhainā during the August fire, said the department still can and needs to help.
“What I’m hearing is the lack of leadership from DCCA in being a facilitator and motivator of planning,” he told the officials.
McKelvey said that a plan to get adjusters in to do their jobs should have been developed much earlier.
“There should have been an aggressive plan by the state to say, 'How do we get the adjusters in? How do we get them to work together? How do we get them to share data to start processing claims? And how do we have a game plan to insist on coordination for access?’” he asked.
He's heard of tactics used by adjusters in other disaster areas, including the use of drones to get photos of properties without sending anyone there physically.
“You're a regulator and your hands are limited in that capacity, but you can be a planner and an advocate for these things,” McKelvey said. “You need to be a facilitator.”
The DCCA also said it can’t do much for those who don’t have any insurance other than refer them to more appropriate federal agencies.
Some of the other lawmakers at the briefing also pushed back against the department.
“It seems clear to me that if you guys are not working on it, there’s no one else in state government that is working on it,” said committee Chair Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole. “The clock is ticking on this process.”
