Insurance payouts for the California fires start to trickle out.

I'm David Brancaccio with dangerously high winds back in the forecast for Southern California today,

and an estimated 12,000 structures destroyed.

I regard dollar estimates of losses at this stage as just rough guesses.

One figure at the moment is that

insured losses could run something in the $30 billion range, which would make it the most

expensive wildfire loss for insurance companies. A UCLA study finds fossil fuel-driven climate

change is contributing to these fires being hotter and larger, marketplaces Nova Safo has more.

Insurance companies are still assessing the scope of the disaster in Los Angeles. Some of those

affected are starting to receive payments. If there is known losses that occurred, there may be

even some very significant advances against what is covered in those policies.

Karen Collins is with the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, an industry trade

group. Based on past disasters, she says the recovery process will be long, likely six

months just for the cleanup. Recovery will also be expensive, and major insurers had already been pulling

out of California because the state limited premium increases. Officials have been backing off

some of those limits, but it's unclear what happens to the state's insurance market now.

There's no infinite pot of money that can pay for rebuilding. Insurers need to have the ability

to price their product commensurate with the risk.

And obviously, the price of rebuilding the risk, it's been skyrocketing due to a number of factors.

Insurance experts say a factor that homeowners can control is rebuilding with fire resilience in

mind.

If they reduce their risk, they can reduce their costs. I'm Novosafo for

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