Fire Victim Trust

We serve as the Claims Processor in the Fire Victim Trust, a $13.5 billion fund established for the benefit of claimants who suffered property loss, emotional distress and other damages as a result of the Butte, North Bay, and Camp Fires in Northern California. Since 2020, BrownGreer has dedicated hundreds of resources to this assignment, including claims evaluators, software developers, data analysts, communication experts, and senior lawyers.

BrownGreer’s role in the Fire Victim Trust has covered the full range of administrative tasks. We constructed the online portal through which claims are submitted, evaluate claims and supporting documents submitted by claimants, calculate claim awards for fire victims, handle communications involving award amounts and other important factors, and distribute payments to eligible claimants.  In addition, BrownGreer works closely with the Trustee, the Claims Administrator and legal counsel to advise the leadership on a wide range of issues relating to the adjudication of claims.

More than 70,000 claimants filed claims in the PG&E bankruptcy and are registered to seek compensation from the Fire Victim Trust. To date, the Fire Victim Trust has evaluated more than 40,000 submissions from over 70,000 individual claimants. In all, the Trust has received more than 250,000 unique claims of damage across nine different claim categories, including: Real and Personal Property, Emotional Distress – Zone of Danger, Emotional Distress – Nuisance, Personal Income Loss, Business Income Loss, Physical Injury, Wrongful Death, Out-of-Pocket Expenses, and Other Damages. The Fire Victim Trust has paid a total of $13.57 billion to eligible claimants and will make additional distributions over the course of 2024.

As part of its engagement for the Fire Victim Trust, BrownGreer worked with FEMA to satisfy obligations under the Stafford Act. FEMA paid fire victims affected by wildfires before the bankruptcy was established and the Stafford Act requires claimants to repay those emergency funds under certain circumstances. In the FVT, BrownGreer participated in a data sharing agreement with FEMA through which the parties exchanged information enabling them to resolve the downstream implications of the benefits paid to those individuals.