By George Glover

Strong winds on Wednesday were making it harder for firefighters to put out the Los Angeles blazes that have burned thousands of homes and claimed at least 25 lives.

The National Weather Service reissued red flag warnings overnight as Santa Ana gusts threatened to spread the fires. Forecasters expect wind speeds to drop on Thursday, which could aid firefighters' containment efforts.

Shares in publicly listed insurers were barely moving in Wednesday's premarket, suggesting investors think they have fully priced in the impact the infernos will have on the companies' quarterly earnings. Chubb and Mercury General were trading flat, while Travelers was down 0.3%.

Allstate slid 0.4%. Jefferies analyst Yaron Kinnar said in a research note Monday that the insurer's shares looked oversold because it had taken steps to reduce its risk from California, such as stopping selling new home insurance policies in the wildfire-prone state. But that's not the only issue investors are grappling with -- on Monday, the state of Texas sued Allstate, accusing it of illegally tracking drivers' cellphone data without their consent.

Allstate didn't immediately respond to a Barron's request for comment.

Analysts estimate that insurers will have to cover about $20 billion worth of losses as a result of the fires. Private weather forecaster AccuWeather raised its preliminary estimate of the total damage and economic loss from the disaster to between $250 billion and $275 billion on Tuesday, a figure that equates to about 6% of California's GDP.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

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January 15, 2025 05:52 ET (10:52 GMT)

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