I don’t use the phrase propaganda calmly. Legal professionals are skilled to argue. Lobbyists are paid to steer. However propaganda is one thing totally different. It’s messaging designed to not inform, however to situation. To not weigh proof, however to steer notion earlier than proof is pretty thought-about.
That distinction issues as a result of what I just lately reviewed from a involved citizen was not a impartial academic presentation by the insurance coverage trade. It was a slide deck ready by the American Property Casualty Insurance coverage Affiliation 1 and delivered to the California Division of Insurance coverage Smoke Claims and Remediation Job Power.
I’ve connected the complete PowerPoint to this publish, and I strongly encourage you to learn it in its entirety. Transparency is necessary. Context issues. This presentation asks to be seen entire.
What struck me instantly was not a single slide, however the narrative. From the opening pages, the deck frames wildfire smoke claims not as a protection or security situation, however as an existential menace to the insurance coverage system itself. Tens of billions in losses. Threat pooling underneath siege. Affordability and availability hanging within the stability. Earlier than any dialogue of well being, habitability, or coverage language or caring for individuals, the viewers is primed to worry one factor above all else: paying an excessive amount of and harming the insurance coverage trade.
That framing by insurers isn’t unintentional. It units the battlefield. When you settle for that smoke claims are a systemic hazard to insurers, each client safety measure begins to look reckless, and each house owner involved concerning the risks of smoke of their house begins to resemble a saboteur.
The presentation repeatedly invokes “sound science” whereas concurrently insisting that the science wanted to guage residential smoke publicity doesn’t exist. Research that increase uncomfortable questions are labeled pseudoscience. Researchers are attacked by identify. Methodologies are dismissed with out providing a competing physique of peer-reviewed residential analysis to fill the void. Uncertainty is weaponized, not as a motive to proceed fastidiously, however as a justification to do much less.
It is a acquainted tactic by the insurance coverage trade. When proof factors in an inconvenient course, discredit the messenger, query motives, and declare the sector too unsettled for motion. In the meantime, place insurers and their perspective as the one accountable adults within the room.
Maybe essentially the most troubling facet of the presentation is how aggressively it blurs traces between fraud and advocacy. Slides dedicated to “chaser” industries lump collectively roof scammers, felony enterprises, unlicensed contractors, public adjusters, toxicologists, nonprofit client teams, and attorneys who characterize policyholders. The implication is evident. If smoke claims enhance, it have to be as a result of somebody is manufacturing worry.
That narrative is highly effective. It additionally occurs to be profoundly unfair.
Fraud exists. It must be rooted out. However portray total professions and people involved for policyholders with the identical brush isn’t fraud prevention. It’s character assassination. It’s designed to delegitimize anybody who challenges insurer decision-making by associating them with the worst actors the trade can discover.
The presentation repeatedly warns of “public worry” as if worry itself is the hazard. Media protection is described as hostile. Specialists are portrayed as alarmists. Testing is lowered to “peace of thoughts.” Lacking from this framing is a straightforward actuality each wildfire survivor understands: worry doesn’t come up in a vacuum. It grows when households are instructed their houses are protected with out clear requirements, when claims are denied with out clear standards, and when individuals are requested to reoccupy areas they don’t belief.
Later within the deck, the masks slips additional. Historic comparisons to asbestos and mould are used to not educate, however to threaten. The message is implicit however unmistakable: Push too exhausting on smoke remediation requirements, and insurers will reply the best way they did earlier than with new exclusions, sub-limits, premium spikes, and market withdrawal accompanied by plenty of public fanfare. This isn’t historical past. It’s leverage.
By the point the presentation reaches its “options,” the vacation spot is apparent. Slim requirements. Tiered testing. Caps on remediation. Restrictions on illustration. Parametric merchandise that shift threat away from insurers and again onto householders. All wrapped within the language of innovation, stability, and science.
Once more, learn the deck your self. I’ve connected it exactly as a result of propaganda loses a lot of its energy when uncovered to sunlight.
None of that is to say that smoke injury claims are easy. They aren’t. Requirements matter. Science issues. Market stability issues. However so does equity. So does good religion claims dealing with. So does the basic promise that insurance coverage exists to revive individuals when catastrophe strikes, to not redefine the catastrophe out of existence.
Propaganda works greatest when it convinces affordable individuals that there’s just one accountable strategy to suppose. That’s the reason it deserves to be known as out once we see it, particularly when it’s aimed toward regulators tasked with defending the general public.
Wildfire survivors, insurance coverage regulators, and anybody who cares concerning the integrity of insurance coverage ought to learn this presentation fastidiously. Not for what it claims to be, however for what it’s.
Thought For The Day
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and homicide respectable.”
George Orwell
1 Collins, Okay., (2026). Insurer views on wildfire smoke claims & remediation. American Property Casualty Insurance coverage Affiliation.