Latest / The Bill Handel Show / Preview: President Trump’s State of the Union | CA Home Insurance Market
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
- 0:04Speaker 1: six forty Judge.
- 0:11Speaker 2: Judge, I I am six forty Bill Handle here.
- 0:15Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody, Taco Tuesday, February twenty fourth. Some of
- 0:18Speaker 3: the stories we're looking at savannahs Savannah Guthrie's family and
- 0:23Speaker 3: she is the spokesperson.
- 0:24Speaker 2: No surprise there.
- 0:26Speaker 3: They've offered a one million dollar reward for information leading
- 0:29Speaker 3: to the return of her mom, their mom, and for
- 0:34Speaker 3: the first time we're hearing that. Yeah, they are ready
- 0:38Speaker 3: to accept the fact that she may not be coming home,
- 0:41Speaker 3: and you know the heartbreak.
- 0:42Speaker 2: I mean, it's just as you can see this day
- 0:43Speaker 2: after day.
- 0:44Speaker 3: I mean, this is played out in front of a
- 0:46Speaker 3: national audience, something that usually is pretty quieter or we
- 0:50Speaker 3: don't know about it on this kind of a scale.
- 0:52Speaker 3: Tonight is the State of the Union speech by President Trump,
- 0:58Speaker 3: which of course I'm not going to miss it.
- 0:59Speaker 2: Start six o'clock.
- 1:00Speaker 3: He said it's going to be a long one, so
- 1:03Speaker 3: I usually woute about at day thirty, quarter to nine.
- 1:05Speaker 3: I may have to hold off my sleep tonight to
- 1:09Speaker 3: watch the speech. And let me tell you the difference
- 1:12Speaker 3: between this year and last year, a year ago when
- 1:15Speaker 3: he was starting his job. Everything he was going to
- 1:19Speaker 3: straighten out all of it. He even shouted out to
- 1:22Speaker 3: Elon Musk who was watching in the gallery, and everything
- 1:26Speaker 3: was going to be terrific. He inherited the worst economy
- 1:29Speaker 3: in the history of the United States. He inherited the
- 1:32Speaker 3: most despised country that's ever existed. He inherited a country
- 1:37Speaker 3: that was collapsing, where the economy was doing nothing or
- 1:41Speaker 3: even worse. And Joe Biden had virtually caused our country
- 1:46Speaker 3: to collapse. And he came in on his White Force,
- 1:49Speaker 3: and now his job was to uncollapse it. Well, now
- 1:52Speaker 3: we got a year later, right, and he's going to
- 1:56Speaker 3: have to turn around his presidency because it is stumbling,
- 2:00Speaker 3: no way around it. The tariffs have been curtailed by
- 2:04Speaker 3: the Supreme Court. That just happened a couple of days ago,
- 2:08Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, you've got hundreds of billions
- 2:10Speaker 3: of dollars of tariffs which American businesses have paid for,
- 2:14Speaker 3: although he'll tell you it's the countries that we're being
- 2:17Speaker 3: tariff paid for. That's delusional, I mean truly delusional. And
- 2:23Speaker 3: he says, oh no, they're paying the tariffs. I can
- 2:25Speaker 3: show you checks that I have written FedEx that suing
- 2:28Speaker 3: can show you checks. They've written to the US government
- 2:32Speaker 3: for tariffs. All right, So you've got the immigration push.
- 2:36Speaker 3: He's going to be talking about that, and immigration has
- 2:40Speaker 3: gone from a strong point one of the strongest positions
- 2:44Speaker 3: that the president has. Immigration under Joe Biden was a disaster.
- 2:48Speaker 3: There's no question the Biden administration threw out open arms
- 2:52Speaker 3: and probably had surgery to make the arms thrown out
- 2:55Speaker 3: even further to allow and welcome illegal migrants. I keep
- 3:01Speaker 3: on trying to figure out which is the right word,
- 3:03Speaker 3: because you can't say illegal aliens. That's not politically correct.
- 3:07Speaker 3: So undocumented, unhoused. Nobody's homeless anymore. And so that has
- 3:13Speaker 3: changed around completely. It was to the point where Joe
- 3:18Speaker 3: Biden it was a disaster. Donald Trump came in, he
- 3:21Speaker 3: was going to straighten that out, and he did, except
- 3:23Speaker 3: he went way, way further with the immigration raids and
- 3:28Speaker 3: the detainees or the detainments and the deportations. It's turned
- 3:33Speaker 3: into a liability for him. You got Iran. That is
- 3:38Speaker 3: the war. It looks like it's approaching. The President has
- 3:41Speaker 3: not tried to sell the public on the conflict or
- 3:45Speaker 3: articulated his goals or laid out what would come next.
- 3:49Speaker 2: We do know it's a question of.
- 3:51Speaker 3: The nuclear enrichment program that they have that they claim
- 3:56Speaker 3: Iran claims is for peaceful purposes, which is a complete croc.
- 4:00Speaker 3: And the ballistic missile program also a the they say,
- 4:05Speaker 3: oh no, we don't have that one, or if they do,
- 4:07Speaker 3: it's not nearly as dangerous, or it's only for defensive purposes.
- 4:12Speaker 2: All of it.
- 4:13Speaker 3: Okay, You've got his questions about his ties to Jeffrey
- 4:16Speaker 3: Epstein and the release of the files that he fought
- 4:21Speaker 3: so hard to not release those files after as part
- 4:25Speaker 3: of his campaign he said, we have to release the files.
- 4:29Speaker 3: We have to release the files, and then all of
- 4:31Speaker 3: a sudden in his president saying oh no, no, we're
- 4:33Speaker 3: not going to release the files. We're going to fight
- 4:35Speaker 3: him like crazy. Something that really bothers me. But not
- 4:39Speaker 3: a lot of people were talking about using the old
- 4:42Speaker 3: office to enrich himself and his family. I mean, it's
- 4:47Speaker 3: become a piggy bank for the president. His family has
- 4:51Speaker 3: enriched themselves by the billions of dollars. And if you
- 4:56Speaker 3: look at his cabinat was just reading an article about
- 5:00Speaker 3: christinom and how and cash Puttel. How they now fly
- 5:05Speaker 3: on the biggest jets they can get their hands on,
- 5:08Speaker 3: and are treating themselves in a way that none of
- 5:12Speaker 3: us would ever dream of treating ourselves, all on the
- 5:15Speaker 3: government tab. It's but you know, it's not corruption, it's
- 5:19Speaker 3: not under the table. They do it openly. They do
- 5:22Speaker 3: it openly. And the president is against cryptocurrency until his
- 5:26Speaker 3: family starts a cryptocurrency fund, of which his share and
- 5:32Speaker 3: they didn't put up any money, is worth billions of dollars,
- 5:34Speaker 3: and now we're happy campers with a cryptocurrency. How about
- 5:38Speaker 3: all of the pardons to people. Anybody who's on his
- 5:42Speaker 3: side is pardoned, anybody who is against him.
- 5:47Speaker 2: The DOJ goes after.
- 5:50Speaker 3: So the president is going to be touting what he
- 5:53Speaker 3: has done, which presidents normally do. How prices have dropped
- 5:58Speaker 3: under his presidency. I don't know how anybody can keep
- 6:01Speaker 3: a straight face. How America is safer than it's ever been.
- 6:05Speaker 3: It's questionable. You can argue crime is down, the crime
- 6:09Speaker 3: was dropping before that. How much of it he's responsible for, Bob,
- 6:13Speaker 3: I'll give him some credit for that.
- 6:14Speaker 2: I will.
- 6:15Speaker 3: Although local murder rates usually crime is done on a
- 6:18Speaker 3: local level, the national level is you can't give Trump
- 6:25Speaker 3: the credit for la murders going down, but he'll take it.
- 6:30Speaker 3: He'll take it. And the entire issue is he has
- 6:36Speaker 3: indeed improved our lives. We are better than we ever
- 6:42Speaker 3: were because he came in and became president. You are
- 6:45Speaker 3: paying less dollars for your groceries than you did before.
- 6:50Speaker 2: The world is a safer place.
- 6:53Speaker 3: He has tariff countries that they are paying for those
- 6:57Speaker 3: tariffs even though you've written the check, which I find
- 7:01Speaker 3: fascinating all of it.
- 7:04Speaker 2: And so it's going to be a speech.
- 7:06Speaker 3: And now the only argument is the only question I
- 7:08Speaker 3: have is how far is he going to go in
- 7:11Speaker 3: taking credit for everything positive? And how far would he
- 7:16Speaker 3: go for saying that anything negative in our country is
- 7:20Speaker 3: not his fault? How many times is he going to
- 7:23Speaker 3: bring up Joe Biden? Boy, there you do it over
- 7:26Speaker 3: and under on this one. I wiedited what the oddsmakers
- 7:29Speaker 3: are saying about how many times he's going to mention
- 7:32Speaker 3: Joe Biden. Can you imagine a beer game? What do
- 7:37Speaker 3: they call those games? When every time a word is uttered,
- 7:40Speaker 3: you take a shot, And how many people are going
- 7:42Speaker 3: to be drunk?
- 7:44Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to be fascinating tonight. I cannot wait.
- 7:46Speaker 3: The only thing we do know is the President has
- 7:48Speaker 3: said it's going to be a long speech because we have.
- 7:50Speaker 2: A lot to talk about.
- 7:52Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough, yeah, wow, tomorrow tomorrow, we have a
- 7:58Speaker 3: lot to talk about as I try to parse this thing,
- 8:02Speaker 3: and I'm going to look for stuff that is legitimate.
- 8:04Speaker 3: I really am, because I have no problem actually looking
- 8:07Speaker 3: for stuff I can give Donald Trump credit for. And
- 8:11Speaker 3: for those of you that know my feelings on President Trump,
- 8:16Speaker 3: you also know that I try to be as fair
- 8:18Speaker 3: as possible.
- 8:19Speaker 2: But it's God, it's hard, man, it is hard. It
- 8:23Speaker 2: really is. Amy. It is raining outside. Isn't it sunny? Nope?
- 8:29Speaker 3: Nope, it's raining. The administration says it's raining, and it
- 8:32Speaker 3: doesn't matter. Take out your umbrellas, walk outside because it
- 8:36Speaker 3: is raining, because China is paying the tariffs, because you're
- 8:41Speaker 3: paying less for groceries than you did last year.
- 8:45Speaker 2: All right.
- 8:46Speaker 3: Now, Living in California, I've often said this, it's the
- 8:51Speaker 3: most expensive state by a long shot to live in,
- 8:54Speaker 3: and one of the big issues, and it happened. It's
- 8:57Speaker 3: been around for a while, but the fires really exacerbated
- 9:01Speaker 3: the issue and brought this to the forefront. We're in
- 9:04Speaker 3: the middle of a home insurance crisis, soaring rates, canceled policies.
- 9:09Speaker 3: Everybody who's a homeowner, certainly I can. I can understand
- 9:14Speaker 3: this because we are all we all have the same problem,
- 9:18Speaker 3: and that's trying to get insurance. When I sold the
- 9:21Speaker 3: Persian Palace, one of the things that I was thinking
- 9:24Speaker 3: of maybe keeping it as a rental. The problem is
- 9:26Speaker 3: when my policy lapsed, and usually the policy lapsed in
- 9:30Speaker 3: a month in advance, they go, here you go, you
- 9:32Speaker 3: want to renew your policy, maybe goes up a few points.
- 9:37Speaker 3: The insurance company that I had simply said, we're not
- 9:40Speaker 3: selling you insurance anymore. We're done. What do you mean,
- 9:43Speaker 3: You're done? Those assurance were out of the business. So
- 9:47Speaker 3: what I had to do is I had to scramble,
- 9:51Speaker 3: and for two and a half weeks I had no insurance.
- 9:56Speaker 2: I was bear.
- 9:58Speaker 3: Let me tell you how pleasant that is waking up
- 10:01Speaker 3: every morning and not having insurance. So I finally found
- 10:03Speaker 3: a policy that was only two and a half times
- 10:06Speaker 3: as much as I was paying.
- 10:07Speaker 2: Thank you, I'm gone.
- 10:11Speaker 3: So the state's plan to fix things, because obviously the
- 10:15Speaker 3: state understands what's going on, and here is the double
- 10:19Speaker 3: edged swords. They want to obviously keep rates as low
- 10:23Speaker 3: as possible for the consumer, for homeowners, for us. And
- 10:27Speaker 3: keep in mind, the insurance commissioner is an elected position here,
- 10:33Speaker 3: and so since it is an elected position, he has
- 10:37Speaker 3: all the incentive to keep rates as low as possible
- 10:40Speaker 3: because he wants to get re elected. So in the meantime,
- 10:43Speaker 3: you have insurance companies are saying, we're getting out of Dodge,
- 10:46Speaker 3: We're not making enough money. So he has to give
- 10:49Speaker 3: them an additional It has to give him an increase
- 10:52Speaker 3: in rates so they can stay here and actually make
- 10:55Speaker 3: money because insurance companies aren't forced to lose money and
- 10:59Speaker 3: they can leave. At the same time, he has to
- 11:04Speaker 3: keep the rates as low as possible. Boy, there's two
- 11:06Speaker 3: ends against the middle, and so.
- 11:09Speaker 2: What is going on? No one knows the answer.
- 11:12Speaker 3: I mean, this has really been a problem, especially since
- 11:15Speaker 3: the fires. So what happens when you can't get insurance
- 11:18Speaker 3: anymore or it becomes so expanded, Well, you can't get insurance.
- 11:22Speaker 3: Let's just say you're in a fire prone area and
- 11:24Speaker 3: there's just no insurance company that's going to ensure you.
- 11:26Speaker 3: It happens all the time. Now you go to the
- 11:29Speaker 3: California Fair Plan. The California Fair Plan is the insurance
- 11:34Speaker 3: policy the insurance company of last resort. When you can't
- 11:37Speaker 3: get insurance any place else, you go to the Fair Plan,
- 11:39Speaker 3: which is an insurance company on its own that all
- 11:44Speaker 3: the other insurance companies kick into, and it sells you
- 11:49Speaker 3: a policy at ridiculous rates, and it only covers fire,
- 11:56Speaker 3: doesn't cover liability, doesn't cover anything other than fire insurance.
- 12:03Speaker 3: And interestingly enough, and I didn't know this, and I
- 12:06Speaker 3: was kind of pleasantly surprised when I heard this. The
- 12:10Speaker 3: ensured properties that were destroyed in the fires they eat
- 12:15Speaker 3: and fire, the Altadena, the Palisades fire, those losses, actually
- 12:21Speaker 3: the insurance companies have the money to pay those They're
- 12:25Speaker 3: not gonna go broke you think they would, but they
- 12:27Speaker 3: actually have the reserves to pay all of those claims.
- 12:31Speaker 3: Those people on the Fair Plan, the Fair Plan isn't
- 12:34Speaker 3: even close to having enough money to pay for the claims.
- 12:40Speaker 3: And so what's the state going to do? I don't know,
- 12:42Speaker 3: kick in who knows? And so this has been going
- 12:46Speaker 3: on for years, as I said, and explain why. On
- 12:49Speaker 3: the one hand, let's keep rate slow. On the other hand,
- 12:52Speaker 3: they and we've kept right slow, and the insurance companies
- 12:56Speaker 3: just got tagged to the point where Okay, we're out
- 12:58Speaker 3: of here.
- 13:00Speaker 2: Now.
- 13:00Speaker 3: Can the state force them to leave.
- 13:03Speaker 2: Or not leave the state? Of course not.
- 13:06Speaker 3: However, can the state say, if you want to do
- 13:07Speaker 3: business here, you have to sell insurance to high risk areas. Yeah,
- 13:11Speaker 3: the state can do that. The insurance commissioner can do that.
- 13:15Speaker 3: And they're saying we can't afford it. And the insurance
- 13:17Speaker 3: commissioner can say, well, if you want to be here,
- 13:19Speaker 3: you've got to be able to push these policies. Oh,
- 13:21Speaker 3: by the way, I will give you substantial rate increases.
- 13:26Speaker 2: Just give you an idea.
- 13:28Speaker 3: California regulators approved a thirty four percent to increase for
- 13:33Speaker 3: all State in twenty twenty four.
- 13:36Speaker 2: All State still says.
- 13:37Speaker 3: Nope, not going to sell any more insurance policies, No
- 13:42Speaker 3: new policies. The disaster of the LA fire, let me
- 13:46Speaker 3: give you a stat.
- 13:47Speaker 2: On this one.
- 13:48Speaker 3: It was the world's most expensive fire ever. Insurers have
- 13:54Speaker 3: some forty billion dollars worth of losses. And that's just
- 13:57Speaker 3: the insurance companies. It's I just want to make you
- 14:03Speaker 3: feel better.
- 14:03Speaker 2: If you're a.
- 14:04Speaker 3: Homeowner, you have a fire you're gonna lose your house,
- 14:07Speaker 3: but at least tell you what keep hot dogs in
- 14:11Speaker 3: a cooler in your house, in your car, because if
- 14:15Speaker 3: a house goes on fire and you just grab a
- 14:17Speaker 3: stick and cook the hot dogs over the fire, you'd
- 14:20Speaker 3: also do s'mores.
- 14:23Speaker 2: Okay, done with that? Okay?
- 14:26Speaker 3: Survey How often do I go and go around the
- 14:29Speaker 3: room and say survey says? And then I take a survey?
- 14:33Speaker 3: But whatever topic? And I, you know, asked Cono and
- 14:36Speaker 3: will Amy and Neil and about a certain topic. Usually
- 14:42Speaker 3: ask about a certain factoid historical fact toid which is
- 14:46Speaker 3: you know absolutely nothing about. And I come up with
- 14:50Speaker 3: the answer. And the more useless it is, the better
- 14:52Speaker 3: I know it. Now, online surveys happen all the time.
- 14:56Speaker 3: This happens to me. Happened yesterday.
- 14:58Speaker 2: I called. I was dealing with Kaiser.
- 15:00Speaker 3: I had an issue with Kaiser Permanente because they killed
- 15:04Speaker 3: a friend of mine, which.
- 15:06Speaker 2: Is not unusual. But I called and asked about it.
- 15:10Speaker 3: And that's actually not true, by the way.
- 15:13Speaker 2: I just make a lot of fun of Kaiser. You know.
- 15:14Speaker 3: The shame of it is is I've been with Kaiser
- 15:17Speaker 3: since I've been five years old, and we actually pitched
- 15:21Speaker 3: Kaiser for me to do spots for them, and they
- 15:25Speaker 3: came back and said, Bill says that we kill half
- 15:28Speaker 3: the people that walk into our hospital.
- 15:31Speaker 2: We're not going to let him do spots for us.
- 15:33Speaker 3: Okay, But in any case, I was calling Kaiser in
- 15:36Speaker 3: a membership issue, and here I get the recording before
- 15:40Speaker 3: I'm connected to a real person, and the recording says,
- 15:45Speaker 3: after the call, will you stay and give us a
- 15:48Speaker 3: review for a few moments. First of all, a review
- 15:52Speaker 3: for a few moments is not a few moments. That
- 15:56Speaker 3: is not the case.
- 15:57Speaker 2: The few times.
- 15:59Speaker 3: Where I've said okay, I'll give you a review goes
- 16:02Speaker 3: on for ten minutes.
- 16:03Speaker 2: It drives me nuts.
- 16:05Speaker 3: Now when it says when it comes up and it
- 16:07Speaker 3: just says, did you like what we did on a
- 16:10Speaker 3: scale of one to five? And that's all. I ignore
- 16:13Speaker 3: that too as a matter of principle. But that one's easy.
- 16:17Speaker 3: The survey is just keep on going. And have you
- 16:21Speaker 3: noticed that you can't go into a restaurant or have
- 16:24Speaker 3: a plumber come up and deal with your house and
- 16:28Speaker 3: have the restaurant and the service provider not say would
- 16:31Speaker 3: you please put a positive tag on Yelp?
- 16:36Speaker 4: Please give me a good survey. Give me some credit.
- 16:42Speaker 4: I went to get some blood drawn at a place.
- 16:45Speaker 4: I'm not going to tell you the name one, but
- 16:47Speaker 4: it was a quest of a time.
- 16:48Speaker 1: But I went and had my blood drawn and it
- 16:53Speaker 1: was such a mix up, going back and forth.
- 16:55Speaker 2: It was annoying.
- 16:56Speaker 1: And then afterwards the woman said, oh, by the way,
- 17:01Speaker 1: and pulled out a piece of paper with her name
- 17:03Speaker 1: on it. They'll be a survey later. Make sure you
- 17:05Speaker 1: remember my name. I'm like, I won't forget your name.
- 17:09Speaker 3: Trus You know that happens all the time. Yeah, I've
- 17:13Speaker 3: dealt with all kinds of service providers. You're right, not
- 17:16Speaker 3: only do you like the service, please put it down,
- 17:19Speaker 3: but please put my name down. Happens all the time.
- 17:22Speaker 3: And frankly, we are in survey fatigue and it does
- 17:27Speaker 3: not stop. Why because that information in addition to all
- 17:31Speaker 3: other sales information, Because that's all it is.
- 17:34Speaker 2: Now.
- 17:34Speaker 3: Whenever we go online for anything, we are that data
- 17:39Speaker 3: is being sold. I do a commercial for a company
- 17:42Speaker 3: called Incogni, which is all about stopping the data sales.
- 17:46Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
- 17:47Speaker 3: Do you know that the DMV sells your information to
- 17:51Speaker 3: data brokers?
- 17:52Speaker 1: I didn't know that until I heard it on that spot.
- 17:55Speaker 3: Yeah, the DMV sells you, straight out sells it. I mean,
- 17:59Speaker 3: come on, guys, when we've reached that point, so everything
- 18:03Speaker 3: you do, everything you do is out there to be
- 18:06Speaker 3: swept up and data.
- 18:08Speaker 2: Mind, and how about this.
- 18:11Speaker 3: Not only am I selling you Bill or Neil's information,
- 18:15Speaker 3: but when.
- 18:16Speaker 2: I dealt with Neil, he loved it.
- 18:18Speaker 3: Look at the survey, look at how happy he was
- 18:23Speaker 3: with me, and that becomes part of all of this
- 18:27Speaker 3: information that's out there.
- 18:30Speaker 2: It's just completely crazy.
- 18:33Speaker 3: We live in a world today where there we talk
- 18:37Speaker 3: about privacy, the right to privacy, the civil libertarians.
- 18:41Speaker 2: It does not exist.
- 18:44Speaker 3: There is no chance I can find out where you live,
- 18:49Speaker 3: who you are, certainly, who your neighbors are, where you've worked,
- 18:54Speaker 3: where you've worked your entire life, any lawsuits that have
- 18:58Speaker 3: been filed.
- 19:00Speaker 2: It just it does not stop. I mean, everything.
- 19:04Speaker 3: About you, Which is why I have put my house,
- 19:08Speaker 3: for example, in a trust, and you get to guess
- 19:12Speaker 3: what the name of the trust is. I try to
- 19:15Speaker 3: hide my assets, yet I get emails for people who
- 19:18Speaker 3: got my emails somehow I don't know how they obtained it,
- 19:21Speaker 3: and will send me a copy of my trust. They
- 19:23Speaker 3: go How the hell is that possible? Because I was
- 19:27Speaker 3: nuts enough to send it online to someone to I
- 19:32Speaker 3: think I had to prove the trust to some banging
- 19:34Speaker 3: institution and I emailed it, oh Man, major error.
- 19:37Speaker 2: All right, this is KFI AM six forty. You've been
- 19:42Speaker 2: listening to the Bill Handle Show.
- 19:44Speaker 3: Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
- 19:47Speaker 3: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app