Brad Kovar recently wrote an article in Claims Journal titled A Defensible Framework for Post-Wildfire Smoke Damage Claims. 1 I read it because Mr. Kovar is an industrial hygienist and, more importantly, a member of California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s Smoke Claims and Remediation Task Force.

Frankly, the article concerned me.

It reads like an industrial hygienist giving insurance companies a roadmap for how to defend and minimize wildfire smoke claims. There is a lot of discussion about what is “defensible,” avoiding “over-attribution,” controlling claim costs, documenting decisions, and avoiding bad faith allegations.

At one point, Kovar describes sampling as where claims can be “won or lost.”

Won or lost?

These claims are not a game. The people making these claims just lived through a wildfire. Many were evacuated from their homes, lost neighbors and neighborhoods, and have spent months trying to figure out whether their belongings can be saved and whether it is safe to move their families back home.

And the structural testing Kovar focuses on usually is not even the beginning of the process.

Before we get to arguments about wipe samples, insulation, ductwork, drywall, or cabinetry, there is often an entire home full of contents that need to be addressed.

Can the contents be salvaged? Can they actually be cleaned? Is it economically reasonable to clean and test them, or does replacement make more sense? Clothing, furniture, mattresses, electronics, artwork, kitchen items, children’s belongings—the list goes on and on. Often the contents need to be removed just so the home itself can be properly evaluated and remediated.

Only after getting through that part of the claim do we get to what Kovar is writing about: What needs to be done to the structure to return the home to its pre-loss condition?

Structural testing is really just one square on the WUI claim game board.

That is why I have a problem with an industrial hygienist framing the issue around how insurers make “defensible” decisions and protect themselves against bad faith claims—particularly when that industrial hygienist sits on the State’s task force addressing these very claims.

Of course the science matters. Testing matters. Causation matters. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. But in an obvious wildfire exposure situation, if appropriate testing shows that insulation, ductwork, or another building component cannot be effectively cleaned, sometimes we do not need to make this more complicated than it is. Remove it and replace it.

Instead, every additional layer creates another point at which the claim can stall. Was the right area tested? Was the sample taken in the right location? What was the background level? Can the material be cleaned? Should it be cleaned again? Should we test it again? Is the contamination really from this fire?

While everyone debates those questions, the insured is still out of the house.

I have been dealing with these wildfire claims, and the thing that gets lost far too easily is what the policyholder has already gone through by the time we are arguing about whether a component of the home can be cleaned.

They are exhausted. They are scared. They have dealt with inventories, contents vendors, cleaners, adjusters, experts, temporary housing, and months of uncertainty. They are burned out, literally and figuratively.

By then, what they want to know is pretty simple: What needs to be done to put my home back into its pre-loss condition?

An industrial hygienist should help answer that question based on the science. I am much less comfortable with an industrial hygienist teaching insurance companies how to defend the answer they want to give.

There should not be a winner and loser in a wildfire smoke claim. The goal should be to properly investigate the loss, figure out what can be saved, determine what cannot, and restore the policyholder’s property. That is what they bought insurance for in the first place.

1 Brad Kovar, “A Defensible Framework for Post-Wildfire Smoke Damage Claims,” Claims Journal, Aug. 13, 2026. Article available online at https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2026/08/13/339361.htm