The question has come up wondering if smoke damage is covered for those homes that were impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires but were not damaged by the actual fires. A cloud of smoke from a fire is larger than the actual number of acres burned.
Remember that part of the reason that these wildfires spread so far so fast was the presence of the Santa Ana winds, which almost yearly come down out of the desert, toward the coast with persistently high wind speeds and strong gusts. Those winds helped spread the fires and pushed the smoke field even farther throughout the region.
So, is smoke a “peril insured against” and the answer to that question is that it depends.
Let’s start with the simplest part of the answer. Many of these homeowners will likely have a policy based on the ISO HO-3 or HO-5 homeowners policies. The primary difference between these two policies is that the HO-3 covers personal