California's Smoke Damage Act Doesn't Bind Until January 1, 2027

Section 10 of AB 1795 runs one sentence: the act becomes operative only if AB 1642 is enacted and becomes effective on or before January 1, 2027. ¹ AB 1642 carries the mirror of that sentence about AB 1795. ³ Governor Newsom signed both in Altadena on September 15, and the reciprocal condition is why either one works at all. ⁴

Four months ago the bill did not need the favor. The version amended in the Assembly on May 18 closed with an urgency clause, "shall go into immediate effect," and the two-thirds vote that goes with one. ² The enrolled text dropped the clause, the Digest Key fell to a majority vote, and Section 10 took its place. ¹ An act drafted to bind the day it was signed now binds on January 1, 2027, which is also the last day its own condition allows.

What lands on a claim that occurs in 2027

Insurance Code § 2060.1(a) creates a rebuttable presumption: if wildfire smoke, ash, soot, char, or combustion byproducts are present in a surviving residential property in the wildfire impact zone after a wildfire, the smoke damage is the result of that wildfire. ¹ The zone is a ZIP Code within or partially within the fire perimeter. ¹ The May draft also reached ZIP Codes adjacent to the perimeter and downwind of it on maps generated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the enrolled text keeps only the perimeter arm. ² Smoke does not stop at a ZIP boundary, and after January 1 the presumption will.

Section 2060.2(d) sets the clocks. An insurer exercising its right to inspect has 30 calendar days from notice, or 30 from the day access is granted where a government restriction closed the property. ¹ Actual cash value on damaged personal property comes due within 30 calendar days of the inspection date, and undisputed replacement cost on the dwelling within 30 calendar days of the date restoration is completed under § 570. ¹ A payment made outside those windows accrues interest to the insured under § 2057. ¹ The personal-property leg will meet the 60% contents advance already on the books on the same file.

The inspection date is now a payment trigger. Log it the hour it happens.

Subdivision (e) is the one to read before a settlement conference. An insurer settling on a written scope or estimate has to hand the claimant a copy of every document the settlement rests on; the estimate has to reach preloss condition and clearance for human occupancy rather than a contractor's sign-off; any vendor the insurer hires or refers has to hold the license, training and certification the state mandates; and the policyholder selects the vendor or contractor. ¹ Subdivision (g) makes a violation of the section an unfair practice under Article 6.5, the same article Los Angeles County has been building its carrier letters around. ¹

None of it reaches the files that produced it. Subdivision (j) applies the section to residential property insurance claims that occur on or after the operative date. ¹ The Department counted more than 13,000 smoke-damage claims on standing homes out of roughly 42,000 filed after the January 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires. ⁵

Those claims occurred in 2025.

A homeowner still in additional living expenses over an unresolved Altadena smoke claim gets the presumption, the clocks and the § 2057 interest on the next fire, not on the one that burned her neighborhood.

Dates are taken from the enrolled text of AB 1795 and the Legislative Counsel's Digest of the enrolled AB 1642. Until the DTSC regulations and guidance are adopted, AB 1642 leaves the existing lead and asbestos standards in force for wildfire remediation.

Date	What binds	Provision
Jan 1, 2027	Both acts become operative, each conditioned on the other. Presumption, inspection and payment clocks, § 2057 interest, document production, vendor selection.	AB 1795 § 10; Ins. Code §§ 2060.1, 2060.2
Jul 1, 2028	DTSC advisory, nonregulatory guidance for schools after a wildfire.	AB 1642
Dec 31, 2028	DTSC adopts lead and asbestos testing, remediation and restoration regulations. Air Resources Board publishes indoor-air guidance.	AB 1642
Jul 1, 2029	Department of Insurance certification programs for company adjusters and public adjusters. Cal/OSHA proposes worker rules to the Standards Board.	Ins. Code §§ 14048, 15009.2; Lab. Code § 6713
Dec 31, 2029	DTSC guidance on contaminants other than lead and asbestos.	AB 1642

Your own license is in this bill

Section 7 of the act adds Insurance Code § 15009.2, and it points at the public adjuster rather than the carrier. On or before July 1, 2029 the Department develops a certification program for public insurance adjusters who inspect, evaluate, sample or test wildfire smoke damage, and a public adjuster hired by an insured to adjust smoke damage claims "shall have the requisite license, training, and certification, as required by this section." ¹ Subdivision (b) makes a violation an unfair practice under Article 6.5, on top of any other disciplinary proceeding in the chapter. ¹ Section 14048 does the same to company adjusters and the firms that accredit them; Labor Code § 6713 sends Cal/OSHA to the Standards Board by the same date with rules carrying their own certification requirement. ¹ The consumer-protection statute regulates the consumer's advocate on the identical timetable it regulates the carrier's.

What the act never says is who has to rebut the presumption, or against what standard. The phrase "burden of proof" appears nowhere in it. ¹ The regulations that would give clearance content are not due from the Department of Toxic Substances Control until December 31, 2028. ³ So the enforceable part of California's smoke regime for the next two fire seasons is a presumption keyed to a ZIP Code, a set of date calculations, and a document-production duty, and the first claim that can test any of it has to occur on or after January 1, 2027.