Next-door neighbors lost their near-identical homes in a California wildfire, but how they are navigating rebuilding is a story of contrasting fortunes and unequal recovery, a stark reflection of the nation’s growing home insurance crisis.

While there has been a growing crisis in insurance for years, the scale and scope of the Los Angeles wildfires brings the issue to a new level, challenging us to ask new questions about how, where and what we build in a changing climate.

Allstate Corp. said it expects about $1.1 billion of losses from the wildfires that ravaged swaths of Los Angeles last month. The anticipated cost partly reflects the Northbrook-based insurer's decision to reduce market share beginning in 2007, the insurer said in a statement Wednesday, when it reported fourth-quarter results.

In the fourth quarter, catastrophe losses took $315 million out of Allstate’s homeowners-insurance business, up from $21 million the year before.

Next-door neighbors lost their near-identical homes in a California wildfire, but how they are navigating rebuilding is a story of contrasting fortunes and unequal recovery, a stark reflection of the

State Farm has asked the state's insurance commissioner for approval to increase premiums on homeowners, citing financial challenges.

California's largest private insurer, State Farm, on Monday urged the state's insurance regulator to approve an emergency hike in rates to help offset the hefty payouts the company is making after devastating wildfires in Los Angeles last month.