I do not use the word propaganda lightly. Lawyers are trained to argue. Lobbyists are paid to persuade. But propaganda is something different. It is messaging designed not to inform, but to condition. Not to weigh evidence, but to steer perception before evidence is fairly considered.
That distinction matters because what I recently reviewed from a concerned citizen was not a neutral educational presentation by the insurance industry. It was a slide deck prepared by the American Property Casualty Insurance Association 1 and delivered to the California Department of Insurance Smoke Claims and Remediation Task Force.
I have attached the full PowerPoint to this post, and I strongly encourage you to read it in its entirety. Transparency is important. Context matters. This presentation asks to be seen whole.
What struck me immediately was not a single slide, but the narrative. From the opening pages, the deck frames wildfire smoke claims not as a coverage or safety issue, but as an existential threat to the insurance system itself. Tens of billions in losses. Risk pooling under siege. Affordability and availability hanging in the balance. Before any discussion of health, habitability, or policy language or taking care of people, the audience is primed to fear one thing above all else: paying too much and harming the insurance industry.
That framing by insurers is not accidental. It sets the battlefield. Once you accept that smoke claims are a systemic danger to insurers, every consumer protection measure starts to look reckless, and every homeowner concerned about the dangers of smoke in their home begins to resemble a saboteur.
The presentation repeatedly invokes “sound science” while simultaneously insisting that the science needed to evaluate residential smoke exposure does not exist. Studies that raise uncomfortable questions are labeled pseudoscience. Researchers are attacked by name. Methodologies are dismissed without offering a competing body of peer-reviewed residential research to fill the void. Uncertainty is weaponized, not as a reason to proceed carefully, but as a justification to do less.
This is a familiar tactic by the insurance industry. When evidence points in an inconvenient direction, discredit the messenger, question motives, and declare the field too unsettled for action. Meanwhile, position insurers and their perspective as the only responsible adults in the room.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the presentation is how aggressively it blurs lines between fraud and advocacy. Slides devoted to “chaser” industries lump together roof scammers, criminal enterprises, unlicensed contractors, public adjusters, toxicologists, nonprofit consumer groups, and attorneys who represent policyholders. The implication is clear. If smoke claims increase, it must be because someone is manufacturing fear.
That narrative is powerful. It also happens to be profoundly unfair.
Fraud exists. It should be rooted out. But painting entire professions and those concerned for policyholders with the same brush is not fraud prevention. It is character assassination. It is designed to delegitimize anyone who challenges insurer decision-making by associating them with the worst actors the industry can find.
The presentation repeatedly warns of “public fear” as if fear itself is the hazard. Media coverage is described as hostile. Experts are portrayed as alarmists. Testing is reduced to “peace of mind.” Missing from this framing is a simple reality every wildfire survivor understands: fear does not arise in a vacuum. It grows when families are told their homes are safe without clear standards, when claims are denied without transparent criteria, and when people are asked to reoccupy spaces they do not trust.
Later in the deck, the mask slips further. Historical comparisons to asbestos and mold are used not to educate, but to threaten. The message is implicit but unmistakable: Push too hard on smoke remediation standards, and insurers will respond the way they did before—exclusions, sublimits, premium spikes, and market withdrawal. This is not history. It is leverage.
By the time the presentation reaches its “solutions,” the destination is obvious. Narrow standards. Tiered testing. Caps on remediation. Restrictions on representation. Parametric products that shift risk away from insurers and back onto homeowners. All wrapped in the language of innovation, stability, and science.
Again, read the deck yourself. I have attached it precisely because propaganda loses much of its power when exposed to daylight.
None of this is to say that smoke damage claims are simple. They are not. Standards matter. Science matters. Market stability matters. But so does fairness. So does good faith claims handling. So does the fundamental promise that insurance exists to restore people when disaster strikes, not to redefine the disaster out of existence.
Propaganda works best when it convinces reasonable people that there is only one responsible way to think. That is why it deserves to be called out when we see it, especially when it is aimed at regulators tasked with protecting the public.
Wildfire survivors, insurance regulators, and anyone who cares about the integrity of insurance should read this presentation carefully. Not for what it claims to be, but for what it is.
Thought For The Day
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
George Orwell
1 Collins, K., (2026). Insurer perspectives on wildfire smoke claims & remediation. American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
