Thousands of homeowners who suffered property damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake will be able to file revised claims with their insurance companies under legislation signed by Gov. Gray Davis, attorneys and insurance industry officials said Monday.
SB 1899, signed late Saturday, allows most earthquake insurance policyholders to submit claims by Jan. 1, 2002, even if they had previously missed their filing deadline.
To be eligible, however, policyholders must have contacted their insurer about the damage before Jan. 1 of this year.
Supporters of the bill said insurance companies typically rejected claims submitted more than a year after the Jan. 17, 1994, quake. In some cases, however, damage was not discovered until several years after the quake.
State officials could not give an estimate of how many people would be affected by the bill, but insurers said it could easily be in the thousands.
"Based on our experience, we think very few of our customers are dissatisfied," said Kitty Miller, a spokeswoman for Farmers Insurance Group. "But this opens the door for many people to reopen claims--in our case 32,000 of them."
Brian Kabateck, a Century City attorney who consulted on the legislation, said he believes at least 10,000 policyholders can potentially submit revised claims, based on his discussions with insurers and fellow attorneys.
"I think this is very big," Kabateck said. "I think finally, hopefully, thousands of people will get a chance to have their claims reviewed and adjusted."
Jacalyn Williams, president of a homeowners association for a 12-unit condominium complex in North Hills, said she welcomed the new law. Her association has struggled to pay for repairs the insurance company said were not needed, she said.
"They told us, 'Basically your building is still standing, so consider yourselves blessed and have a nice day,' " Williams said. "We requested to reopen the case, because we found out we had windows that don't close right anymore, cracks in the stucco that we didn't see immediately."
"All of a sudden things became more evident," Williams said. "We had paid insurance for years and years but our damage was not covered at the time. They didn't handle that."
To be eligible to file a revised claim, policyholders must already have submitted a claim that was denied because it was not filed in a timely manner.
