State Farm Exec Appears to Condemn L.A. Fire Victims, Say Palisades Homes Should Never Have Been Built
A State Farm executive appeared in a video released Wednesday to say that homes should never have been built in the Pacific Palisades at all, blaming the victims of the recent Los Angeles wildfires, including State Farm’s own customers.
The video, released by James O’Keefe’s OMG News, appears to show a man described as Haden Kirkpatrick, who was in turn described by a State Farm website in 2024 as “Vice President – Innovation & Venture Capital” at the company.
In a post on X that replied to the video, O’Keefe provided his description of the dialogue appearing in the video:
Pacific Palisades was founded on the site of a former ranch by Methodists. Later, it became a refuge for Jews fleeing the Holocaust.
While there are some homes in the area that are built on hillsides or in canyons, where there is greater risk from the elements, the vast majority of homes are built in flat areas that pose no additional risk that other buildings in Los Angeles do not face.
State Farm has faced harsh criticism from residents over its decisions to drop many customers in the weeks — or days — before the fire, and to force customers to itemize lists of their lost personal possessions rather than simply paying out the value of their coverage for lost property.
Critics of California’s insurance market have also noted that the reason State Farm and other companies canceled many policies was that the state would not let insurance companies charge premiums based on future risk, unlike the other 49 states.
That made the insurance industry unprofitable and forced many firms to leave.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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