Flames were licking his fence, he was choking on smoke, and bullets were whizzing by his leg. Despite it all, Tristin Perez never left his Altadena home during the deadly Eaton fire.

The Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire, which overwhelmed coastal neighborhoods about 30 miles away, have together killed at least 24 people and destroyed well over 10,000 structures. How the victims rebuild their lives will now depend largely on California’s beleaguered home insurance market.

California issued emergency new insurance regulations giving insurers more freedom to raise premiums while also requiring them to extend coverage to wildfire-prone areas of the state. The hope was that this compromise of higher premiums and more coverage would set right the crisis of insurers fleeing the state and leaving