Mercury General said today it has not yet decided whether to consider the Palisades and Eaton wildfires as one or two events under its reinsurance coverage after Property Claim Services designated the fires as separate events.

California’s Fair Plan has estimated its exposure to date from the Palisades and Eaton wildfires at more than $4.75bn.

Lloyd’s investment vehicle Helios will remain exposed to Wildfire Defense Systems' Syndicate 1996 until 30 June 2025, although the latter confirmed it has not yet suffered any structure losses from the ongoing Los Angeles fires, The Insurer can reveal.

Moody’s RMS Event Response has estimated insured losses for the Los Angeles wildfires to date will likely range between $20bn and $30bn, which is below some of the preliminary ranges published elsewhere in recent days.

The latest wildfires in Los Angeles might have been unique in their scope, but a combination of regulatory constraints, dry weather, and structural neglect played a role in just how destructive the blazes were, and how large the resulting economic losses are shaping out to be, industry executives told The Insurer .

Sompo and its foundation arm have announced that they will donate $100,000 across two grants to help provide disaster relief for the Southern Californian wildfires.

Gallagher Re has upped its expected loss range for the Southern California wildfires to $20bn to $30bn, with the portion ceded to reinsurers potentially in the mid-to-high single-digit billions of dollars.

The age of homes burnt, smoke damage, inflation and the California Fair Plan are variables in the losses from the Los Angeles wildfires, according to Tom Larsen of CoreLogic, which has released a $35bn to $45bn estimate of insured loss.

Property analytics firm CoreLogic has preliminarily estimated a residential and commercial insured loss for the Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles of between $35bn and $45bn.

With a growing expectation that the Los Angeles wildfires will go through the California Fair Plan’s reinsurance protection, focus is increasing on a cat program which The Insurer can reveal has more than 60 participants spanning the US, Bermuda, Lloyd’s/London and international markets.