Consumer Watchdog's Smoke & Mirrors Podcast Exposes Troubling Tactics of Insurance Subcontractors in Wildfire Recovery
Companies Appointed to CA Smoke Damage Task Force Among those Accused of Downplaying Smoke Damage
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The second episode of Smoke & Mirrors, the investigative podcast by Consumer Watchdog, uncovers a troubling system of subcontractors hired by insurance companies, who often prioritize minimizing payouts over restoring fire survivors' homes to safe and livable conditions.
Listen to episode 2, out today, on your podcast platform of choice, including:
Host Justin Kloczko takes listeners through the little-known world of fire insurance subcontracting, where companies positioned as experts in smoke testing and home remediation work for insurers seeking to cut costs.
"These cleaning and testing companies are not independent, and most of them primarily work for the big insurance companies," said Kloczko, who produced the series from Consumer Watchdog, Smoke & Mirrors.
"They're sent when homes survive a fire but are inundated with toxic contamination from heat, smoke and ash. Too often homeowners report these companies don't test, or when they do test, they test to deny, not to discover what's needed to make a home safe again."
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced a Smoke Claims and Remediation Task Force to create statewide cleaning and testing standards for smoke damaged homes. Yet more than half of its members represent insurance companies or consulting firms that work for insurance companies, with no public adjusters, wildfire survivors, or independent industrial hygienists named to the task force, Consumer Watchdog found. The podcast chronicles homeowners' experience with two of the task force companies accused of downplaying smoke damage, HRA Environmental Consultants and Blue Sky Environmental Consulting.
"Appointing companies accused of downplaying smoke damage to the panel charged with setting standards for cleanup skews the outcome before they even get started," said Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog. "Commissioner Lara must add wildfire survivors, public adjustors and independent experts in toxins to the task force for families to be confident that any new standards will mean a safe return home."
The episode finds:
- Companies such as JS Held, P.W. Stephens, Servpro, HRA Consulting, and Blue Sky Environmental are repeatedly hired by insurers like Amica and State Farm.
- These firms often performed minimal or narrow testing that overlooked critical toxins such as heavy metals, cyanide, and other carcinogenic chemicals.
- Meanwhile, industrial hygienists hired by homeowners conducted tests that uncovered widespread contamination that insurers often failed to acknowledge in their own remediation plans.
- In one case, a popular corporate consultant admitted under oath that he relied on just visual inspection, smell, and minimal tape samples to recommend to an insurer that no major cleaning was needed.
- The same consultant in another case cited toxins from "sea spray" as a potential contributing factor to toxins present in an Altadena home, which is about 25 miles away from the coast.
- Contracts from another company explicitly state they do not guarantee the removal of hazardous substances like lead, despite being hired to remove them.
- Survivors who questioned testing or cleanup practices were accused of being uncooperative.
- Many policyholders have spent thousands out of pocket for reliable testing just to prove their homes are unsafe.
A survey of 2,335 Los Angeles fire survivors by the Department of Angels found that 1 in 4 survivors want contamination testing of their homes and have not been able to obtain it. In general, those with standing homes reported "far worse" experiences with their insurance companies than those whose homes were lost, because they are likelier to have to fight to get information and to get claims approved.
"The aftermath has been far worse in a different way, because the immediate disaster was frightening, but the recovery from the fire has been incredibly difficult," said Karen Girard, an Eaton Fire survivor. "Because the social services, the governmental services, the paid services, like insurance, are not actually helping those of us who are survivors of the fire."
Smoke & Mirrors uncovers a web of little-known subcontractors and unseen technology that facilitate claims delays, lowballed payouts and denials, and offers advice on what consumers can do about it.
It includes narrative storytelling, interviews with experts and attorneys, and draws on court records to paint a picture of how many insurance companies are not meeting their obligations to policyholders.
Learn more about the series at ConsumerWatchdog.org.
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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog