Are insurance companies denying Maui fire losses due to "zoning infractions?" No, that's not true: A Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs spokesman told Lead Stories there have been no reports of claim denials "due to zoning infractions" as of August 18, 2023.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) where it was published on Bitchute on August 16, 2023 under the title "INSURANCE COMPANIES TELLING MAUI RESIDENTS ZONING INFRACTIONS ON LAND AND WON'T PAY OUT!". It opened:
Not that long ago, Hawaiian government officials in the areas that were just affected by the wildfires passed a law saying that that land could not be redistricted for new building permits unless some type of a serious natural disaster occurred.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Bitchute website screenshot taken on Mon Aug 21 18:32:16 2023 UTC)
The person in the video continued:
Not that long ago, Hawaiian government officials in the areas that were just affected by the wildfires passed a law saying that that land could not be redistricted for new building permits unless some type of a serious natural disaster occurred.
Serious natural disaster occurred. And what did we have happen through those three districts of very sacred land to the Hawaiians? A very serious natural disaster. I'm not going to get into the space lasers and all of that shit. But, people called their insurance companies after the fire and the insurance companies for the first time informed them that there were zoning infractions on their land so they would not honor their insurance policies.
The claim that insurance companies have started denying claims after the August 8, 2023 wildfires in Maui due to "zoning infractions" is false. Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs spokesman William Nhieu said in an email to Lead Stories: "As of Friday evening, the Hawaii Insurance Division has received no reports of claim denials 'due to zoning infractions'."
A Google search of the keywords "hawaii insurance company deny claim zoning," yields no credible results of this taking place. A law firm is buying prime Google search keywords to promote the claim as a way of getting leads to potential clients. Here is the link to one such web ad.
Government officials in Maui did not pass a law prohibiting new building on the island unless there was a "serious natural disaster." Lead Stories debunked that claim and noted that the legislation applied to hotels and other so-called transient accommodation but did not include a natural disaster exception.
This insurance denial claim is being used to support conspiracy theories that the tragic wildfires were intentionally set to lear the way for a land grab by developers. The conspiracy theorists claim insurance companies are conspiring with the developers by denying the claims to force a sale of the land.
Lead Stories has debunked multiple stories about the 2023 fires on Maui, including claims that the fire was started by a laser from the sky or that a laser beam was present in a photo of a burning church on Lahaina and that a direct energy weapon started the fire or that it was ignited to create a crisis that could be solved by AI.
