Maui wildfire survivors say insurers are failing to clean up toxic damage to their homes

LAHAINA, Hawaii - More than 2,200 homes burned in the deadly fire that roared through west Maui last August. Janice Hussey’s was not one of them.

When the 79-year-old turned onto her street on Aug. 9, 2023, she exhaled. The light green house where she’d lived with her husband, children and grandchildren for nearly 20 years, was still there. Her old Nissan truck was still in the driveway, her floral curtains still rustling in the wind. It felt “miraculous,” she said.

Until she went inside.

“It was not the same,” Janice Hussey recalled in May, still displaced eight months later. “Every time we went in there, I could feel -”

“Icky,” Makanalani Hussey, her granddaughter, interjected as she hugged her wriggling 2-year-old daughter against her pregnant belly. “It’s icky.”

“There is something in the air that settles on your skin,” her grandmother continued. “Something is there.”

That “something,” according to five experts and two contamination reports, is a mixture of toxic chemicals and microscopic particles that urban wildfires create and carry in their smoke. As the wind-driven fire swept through much of Lahaina, killing 100 people, it incinerated cars, gas stations, electronics, metals and plastics. Those smoke plumes blew into dozens of homes that didn’t burn down, and their components can cause an array of health issues, including brain tumors and cancer.

This dangerous fire residue contaminated nearly everything in the Hussey’s packed, three-bedroom house: the insulation, carpets, clothing, furniture, even down to the old, chipped drawers in their kitchen, according to two independent experts, who also said it would take weeks of meticulous work to make this space safe again, at a cost of up to $80,000.

State Farm, the Hussey’s insurer and the largest residential carrier nationwide, disagrees that such a level of cleaning and restoration is needed. The company initially gave them about $29,000 to cover all the expenses associated with the smoke damage, including cleaning all their belongings. They are afraid to move back, Janice said, and unable to cover the difference. Her big family “has spent the last year jostling between hotels and apartments until State Farm stopped paying” for their rent in February. In a letter viewed by The Post, the carrier said that since it had paid for restoration , the family’s home should be habitable.

Janice and her husband have been squeezing into their daughter’s home since March; Makanalani, her partner and children are in a one-bedroom hotel room.

“It’s not right,” Janice shook her head, “how they are treating us.”

These disputes are happening across Maui. The Post spoke to 11 families - nearly all of whom have State Farm policies - who are fighting with carriers over the discrepancies between what they received for smoke contamination and what independent experts say they need. . State Farm gave three homeowners about $13,000 each to fix the problem. Estimates from restoration companies and independent experts show the work could cost nearly four times that amount.

In a statement, State Farm said that “claim handling has been ongoing and we have been actively working with customers to resolve concerns.” In response to detailed questions about the Husseys’ and other families’ claims, the carrier said it could not comment on individual cases.

But in emails to a public adjuster representing the Husseys back in May, the company said its coverage decision, based on their retained expert, as well as their investigations of the home, was appropriate. After The Post reached out about the family’s situation in August , the company gave them an additional $14,000 for the damage and the expenses they racked up from not being able to live there.

Hawaii’s Insurance Division did not respond to questions about residents’ issues with State Farm, including a family who had filed a complaint about the carrier.

Families whose homes were left standing after the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, Calif., and the 2021 Marshall Fire near Boulder, Colo., endured similar battles with State Farm and other major insurers. And as climate change and development turn more wildfires into urban blazes, homeowners are increasingly reporting smoke damage and sparring with their insurance companies. It’s a reflection, experts say, of the growing gap between what a disaster costs and what insurers are willing to cover.

There’s no comprehensive, nationwide tracking of these smoke damage claims. However, in California - the nation’s largest insurance market -smoke-related wildfire claims have increased as much as 37 percent from 2018 to 2021, the last year that data was publicly available, according to the insurance data company, Guidewire. In 2020, carriers reported $179 million in losses from smoke-related claims.

A big part of the problem, experts point out, is that there are still no industry standards or state or federal laws that regulate the assessment, testing and removal of wildfire smoke residue in homes. That means the insurance company and their chosen experts are the ones who determine if a home is safe and habitable, and who can rule that its contamination is not as serious or costly as physical property loss.

“There’s no oversight,” said Louis Adams, an indoor air quality specialist. “Anyone can do whatever they want.”

Colorado is trying to become the first state in the nation to change that. Years after the Marshall Fire left scores of residents with smoke-shrouded homes, state lawmakers are working to create minimum “uniform standards” for insurance and testing companies as they assess houses that absorbed toxic, cancer-causing pollutants.

At the same time, carriers have been straining under the mounting costs of climate-related events. State Farm stopped selling new home insurance in California due to wildfire risk and has recently asked state officials for another massive rate hike “to protect the insurer’s solvency,” filings show. For the Maui wildfire, the carrier said it has received about 2,360 claims - about half of all residential claims related to the disaster - and has paid out approximately $257 million.

Janice, who works as an “aloha greeter” at a luau restaurant in Lahaina and cares for her sick husband, still can’t afford to move forward. Her great grandchildren keep telling her, “Tutu, we want to go home,” she said one balmy May morning, sitting under her daughter’s carport. Her husband coughed as she spoke.

“I don’t know what to tell them,” she said quietly.

About 20 miles away, dozens of State Farm employees were vacationing at the Grand Wailea on Maui’s south shore. For about a month this past spring, the carrier hosted its top sales agents and their families at the luxury resort, where rooms can cost around $800 or more a night. Attendees wore company apparel and hats, lounged at the pool and attended parties on the beach, according to two industry professionals, one who stayed at the hotel for a week, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.

.In a statement, State Farm said it had planned its “2024 agency event in Hawaii well before the devastating Maui wildfire.” The company said it consulted with community representatives and decided to continue with the event to support their economy

A tight-knit community, scarred by soot

On the afternoon of Aug. 8, 2023, the Husseys and many of their neighbors drove their packed cars through black smoke out of Leialiʻi - their Hawaiian homestead community a few minutes west of Lahaina- and didn’t expect to come back. Flames nearly encircled their neighborhood, coming so close they melted window sills and scorched palm tree-filled lawns, then stopped.

Back in 2007, the Husseys and nearly all of their neighbors had moved into Leialiʻi as part of a land reparations program for Native Hawaiians. Residents regularly feed as well as scold one another’s children. And if someone whips into a cul-de-sac driving faster than 15 mph it’s obvious they’re an outsider.

Here and across Lahaina, many of those struggling with their smoke damage claims are Filipino and Native Hawaiian. They already had a deep mistrust of institutions and were just making ends meet before the fire. After losing uncles and aunties, their tourism industry jobs, cars and sense of security in a terrifying instant, many wanted to stay home.

After her family evacuated, Norma Hussey, Janice’s eldest daughter, stayed to watch over the house. The roof, which lost many shingles, seemed to be the only problem. Black dust, though, was everywhere, Janice recalled, since she had left the windows open when they rushed out. For more than a week, Norma, a 54-year-old culinary worker, wiped away layers of soot and ash that kept reappearing.

On Aug. 19, 2023, Janice and her husband went home to get some belongings and see their daughter. They found her lying in their backyard, next to her garden, dead. Norma had died of “some sort of attack,” Janice said. It “seemed unreal, almost impossible,” because the family had just celebrated Norma’s birthday with a camping trip three days before the disaster. While her mother blames the fire, especially the stress, her daughter’s death certificate says Norma died of a brain aneurysm. The family has no evidence that exposure contributed to her death.

After her daughter’s death, Janice said they only go home to get the mail, and “to keep Norma’s plants alive.”

As the weeks wore on, more people in the neighborhood started experiencing tingling throats, headaches, tightening chests and trouble breathing when doing chores or going upstairs, said Maria Linz, a Leialiʻi resident and coordinator at the Leial’i recovery center.

Before last August’s fire, Lahaina’s air was usually sweet and salty. After, it tasted acidic, Linz said. Worried, she sent her young son and her mother, who has health issues, to live with her sister in California. The rest of her family couldn’t afford to leave. Even with three air purifiers and windows shut tightly, she kept finding black soot on their window sills and bed frames.

“We are blessed that our houses are still standing,” Linz said. “But what people don’t understand is we weren’t untouched. We are damaged.”

“There have been many days that I wish my home had burned down,” she added.

When fire damages a home, an insurance company usually follows a standard procedure, experts note. First, it dispatches an adjuster, sometimes a catastrophe specialist , to inspect the property and send back reports. In many smoke damage cases, carriers will bring on their own experts to assess the home’s contamination, and then use those results when calculating the payment.If a family wants another, independent opinion, they usually have to pay for it, which can cost up to $5,000.

Dawn Bolstad-Johnson, a certified industrial hygienist who specializes in post-fire environments, says this poses inherent conflicts. The contracted testing companies insurers hire can conduct less comprehensive examinations than independent ones, according to reports from the Marshall and Lahaina fires The Post viewed. For these two disasters, insurers often refused to pay for or accept third-party results. There are also no industry-accepted guidelines or requirements, as there are for other toxic exposures, for an independent expert to recheck homes to ensure they are safe to occupy, Bolstad-Johnson said.

In addition, many homeowners have little to no experience with smoke contamination. As a result, their claim settlements often do not adequately reflect the extent of their exposure, putting them at risk, according to eight experts and policyholder advocates. Every Lahaina family The Post talked to had that experience.

Linz, whose home was near the fire line, filed her claim shortly after the blaze. State Farm did not send out a smoke expert until Nov. 30, and refused requests to have that inspector do more thorough testing, such as checking behind the walls, emails show. The tester wiped six areas of her home. In January, Linz received the results: there was “definitive presence of combustion by-products” from a fire, but it was not high. The attic, for example, came back “inconclusive.”

In January, State Farm gave Linz $13,000 to handle her smoke contamination. At the time, restoration companies had been quoting her neighbors and other Lahaina residents - depending on the size of their home, amount of contents inside and its proximity to the fire - anywhere from $36,000 to $80,000, according to estimates seen by The Post. Her entire payout, which addressed other damage, wouldn’t even cover that, she said, so she decided to scrub, dust and wipe down her home herself. She’d later learn from a third-party test that her home was much more contaminated.

“We are not trying to make money or profit off of disaster,” said Linz. “We just want our houses cleaned. We want to know we are safe in our homes, and we don’t know that.”

Three other families who talked to The Post reported similar experiences.

In a nearby neighborhood - straight downwind from where the fire started - Danilo Andres has been “slowly” ripping out carpets, throwing out beds and repainting each wall of the large two-story home he built himself nearly 40 years ago. State Farm’s tester found “elevated” levels of char throughout the home, the report shows. But the amount State Farm gave him wasn’t close to the $60,000 a restoration company said was needed to remove the fire residue. “Most of the house was toxic,” he said. He and his wife are still in a hotel.

During the day, Andres drives around guests for the Westin resort, a job he’s had since 1987. In the evenings, he rips up his house. The work has given him a cough and “severe headaches.” His temples still ache when he shampoos his hair. But he’s hustling to finish, particularly the master bedroom, not only so he and his wife “can go home,” but for his family, too.

“My grandkids need to place to sleep if they come to the house after school,” he said. “We can’t afford a babysitter.”

‘Would I live in this home?’

Last October, Hawaii Community Lending, a nonprofit that helps Native Hawaiians, decided to bring on outside experts because so many people were struggling with their insurance claims, said executive director Jeff Gilbraeth. Using a grant from SBP, a nonprofit disaster response organization, Hawaii Community Lending contracted Troy Hanohano, a native Hawaiian public adjuster, to represent families in their discussions with insurers.

Unlike normal public adjusters, Hanohano is not making a commission on these 100 or so cases, most of them smoke damage, and most of them insured by State Farm. Every week, he flies from Oahu to meet with residents, squeezing his tall frame into rental cars and chugging energy drinks as he drives from the Leiali’i recovery center to home after home. Accustomed to this kind of exhausting work, Hanohano said he’s never been this sick so often in his life.

“These homes are killing me,” he’s wheezed more than once over the last few months, making sure this reporter wore a 3M respirator mask when visiting some of the most contaminated ones in his caseload.

Six months later, Hawaii Community Lending brought on an independent testing company to recheck people’s homes. Jonathan Bowers, the executive director of Clean Environmental Solutions, analyzed about 350 homes in Lahaina by collecting samples from inside the walls, the attics and on surfaces . Bowers, who also worked on the Marshall Fire, then sent his samples to an independent, certified lab. The results were concerning.

[Maui officials highlight steps toward rebuilding Lahaina nearly a year after deadly wildfires]

In Leiali’i, nearly all the samples returned showing elevated levels of soot, ash or char, he said.

What’s been baffling, Bowers said, is that insurance industry contractors have been taking more samples, yet the levels of contamination are coming up low or even non-detected. Bowers said his company has not needed to take as many because of the “gross contamination” that he saw in Lahaina.

The Hussey family is a good example, Bowers said. Last September, State Farm sent EFI Global, one of their main contractors, to test the home. In a preliminary 19-page analysis, the contractor observed a significant amount of fire residue around the house. The inside smelled like smoke. “All carpets within the residence should be replaced,” it said. And though the report shows that inspectors did not test the attic, they said the insulation needed to “be removed and replaced.” Given “the proximity of the residence to the wildfire and a visual inspection,” the exterior also needed to be cleaned.

The company then sent their tape lifts to its own laboratory, which concluded that only two of the 24 samples taken had “atypical” levels of soot, char and ash. The remaining ones fell in “acceptable ranges.”

Based in part on those results, State Farm gave Janice about $21,790 to restore her home and $7,258 to clean personal property, documents show. That was shocking, she said, because Maui’s main restoration company quoted her $43,826 for restoration, and that was just an initial estimate. State Farm also said in a letter that she “would be responsible for any additional charges” not in line with their tester’s findings.

Hahohano later estimated it would cost up to $80,000 due to the contamination level, intensive work and the need to replace most everything inside.

In April, Bowers surveyed her residence. His 64-page analysis made some of the same observations as those from EFI Global, but his samples showed a much more dangerous situation: High levels of toxic carcinogens were found throughout the home. Each sample showed residue levels three to seven times higher than EFI Global’s. The attic, for example, had a contamination level of 46 percent. The attic, 26 percent.

EFI Global did not respond for request for comment.

Bowers explained the difference between the varying testing results: He tests in places that insurance contractors sometimes avoid - such as in attics or behind the walls. He said he concurred with Hahohano’s estimate.

“The way I evaluate a property is, ‘Would I put my wife and my son in this home? Would I live in this home in its current condition?’” Bowers explained. “The answer had always been no in Lahaina.”

A legal obligation

An insurance company has an obligation to thoroughly investigate a loss, according to Hawaii’s and other states’ statues. As emails he shared with The Post show, Hanohano sent documentation to State Farm on behalf of multiple families - including Linz and the Husseys - showing that the carrier’s contractors did not test the attic or the wall cavities, a necessity since, as he wrote in one from May 14, they “may or may not contain potential carcinogenic combustion byproducts.”

Sometimes, State Farm replied, asking for additional information, or informing them of a new adjuster on the case. Most other times, they did not. The carrier would not answer questions from The Post about how it handles findings from outside experts when determining smoke damage claims.

And, because a house absorbs and holds onto these toxic gases and particles, experts say families should replace almost everything inside, such as insulation, couches, mattresses, carpets and clothing. Smoke, soot, ash and char can also corrode electronics.

Walking through the Hussey’s living room, Hanohano pointed to the rug, with toy trains still askew from when they evacuated: “Would you want your kid playing on that?” He asked through his mask. “Or that?” he nodded to an unmade bed. “Even if it had been cleaned?”

“It becomes your life”

Nearly three years ago, the Marshall Fire swept through the Boulder suburbs, incinerating 1,100 structures. The flames that windy December day got so close to Kimberly Redublado’s home they “essentially baked it,” she said. Every room smelled like a chemical plant, she recalled. When her carrier, USAA, sent an expert, they found that the contamination was “pervasive,” and the home “not habitable,” according to the report. Restoration workers aggressively stripped and cleaned her house, she said, but her “textiles came back still reeking of chemicals.” When inside, she said her eyes would burn, her skin would turn red, and she and her children would taste metal in their mouths.

While USAA initially paid for the cleaning, further tests - one of which USAA commissioned- and an independent restoration company’s assessment showed that there was still a strong smoke smell that “should be investigated,” and all contaminated building materials needed to be removed, emails and reports show. USAA, however, did not agree, Redublado said.

Many of her neighbors were “in the same hell,” she said. For more than a year, they compared notes about their symptoms and adjusters in a Facebook support group that had swelled to 600 members. Last December, Redublado sued USAA. Currently, she and more than a dozen other families are still in legal disputes with their insurers over the cost of their contamination and other damage.

In a statement, USAA said that it “disagrees with Plaintiff’s allegations in this case. We strive to take care of our members and paid a substantial amount on this claim.”

It’s the disaster after the disaster that no one warns you about, Redublado said. She recently gave advice to a young mother in Lahaina who was struggling to get her insurance company to cover her baby’s belongings - such as bottles - that were covered in that black dust.

Redublado often breaks down when she talks about her children. Her young son is autistic, and is still experiencing “horrible PTSD” from what he lost because of the fire, and the stress of the years-long aftermath. His twin sister is also in therapy.

“It becomes your life,” she cried one August evening.

It has for Janice, too. She hasn’t been able to grieve or put together a memorial for her daughter because of the “insurance mess.” For the last year, she’s taken meticulous notes about this experience, which she keeps in a red, “State Farm” emblazoned folder. “Called 3x and no replies,” she scrawled on Sept. 20. Flipping through her spiral notebook one morning before work, she landed on a dateless entry titled, “emotional distress.”

At the suggestion of a counselor, Janice had written down prompts to answer. One says: “Please provide a brief description of how your emotional wellbeing has been impacted by the fire.”

She left it blank.