|
 |
Welcome to Popular Information, a newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism.
 |
Jake from State Farm, call your office.
The company kicked off 2026 with a splashy Super Bowl commercial featuring two popular comedic actors, Danny McBride and Keegan-Michael Key, as insurance agents for a fictional State Farm competitor, Halfway There Insurance. The duo riffs on the Bon Jovi classic, Livin’ on a Prayer:
There is damage to your home on this block
We won’t make things right cuz filing a claim is tough
No luck
Whoa, we’re halfway there
Whoa, you’re living on a prayer
State Farm described the ad, which also includes a cameo by Jon Bon Jovi himself, as “a humorous parody that encourages viewers to not settle for coverage that makes you feel ‘halfway there.’” The ad “exaggerates potential common consumer frustrations with their insurance experiences, from confusing terms to impersonal corporate environments.”
No expense was spared. The full ad debuted during the most widely watched broadcast of the year and was extended through March Madness. In 2025, State Farm spent $1.139 billion on advertising.
On Monday, the ad was cited in a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles County on behalf of the people of California seeking at least $160 million in restitution plus civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.
The lawsuit alleges that State Farm failed to pay benefits due to victims of the 2025 LA wildfires. According to the complaint, many Californians with State Farm insurance “cannot return home because smoke, soot, ash, debris, and chemical contamination have made their homes unsafe and Defendants have failed to agree to conduct the necessary testing or to fully and timely cover the costs of remediation.” Some State Farm policyholders, the complaint claims, now “face eviction or homelessness.”
The 107-page complaint contains several horror stories. In one case, a “97-year-old Palisades resident” lived in a home “within 250 yards of burned structures.” Nevertheless, “State Farm refused to authorize or pay for environmental testing, telling the family that if they wanted testing, they could pay for it themselves.” Meanwhile, remediation contractors said “they could not begin cleaning without knowing what contaminants were present, because lead, asbestos, and other toxins require different protocols.”
The man’s daughter, despite persistent efforts, has been unable to reach a resolution with State Farm. In one instance, she was placed on hold for two hours and fifty-six minutes before being disconnected. The man, who suffered a stroke shortly after the fire, “has never been able to return to his home.”
In other cases, according to the complaint, State Farm denied payments until the policyholder went to the press or reported the company’s behavior.
In one total-loss claim, consistent with many others, State Farm began sending checks almost immediately after the policyholder went to the press. In another total-loss claim, State Farm refused to pay for 16 months and then immediately sent 4 checks to consumers the next morning after they told an EPA representative, who was visiting the Altadena area, about State Farm’s failure to pay them.
Los Angeles County also seeks penalties against State Farm for false advertising, specifically citing the Halfway There campaign. From pages 76-77 of the complaint:
State Farm’s Head of Marketing, Alyson Griffin, said the campaign was meant to convince viewers that State Farm’s services are more than just halfway there, and that State Farm chose the song because it “gets customers to realize we’re here to help.” She said State Farm wanted customers “to feel confident in their insurance” and did not “want them to feel like they’re living on a prayer.”
…The campaign was built to induce consumers to choose or stay with State Farm on the representation that it, unlike inadequate alternatives, delivers complete claims service and makes things right after a covered loss.
The complaint describes the Halfway There campaign as “a false-advertising problem of State Farm’s own making.” According to Los Angeles County, State Farm “defined adequate insurance as insurance that ‘makes things right’ after covered damage” even as it was, in the complaint’s words, “delivering to its own California and Los Angeles County policyholders the very inadequacies the advertisement mocked.”
The website State Farm created to promote the Halfway There campaign has been taken offline and the ads have been removed from YouTube.
One thing that sets Popular Information apart from a lot of other independent newsletters is that we don’t put our work behind a paywall. Why? We produce journalism to hold the powerful accountable and spur change. That means it needs to reach as large an audience as possible.
Our reporting would not have forced the Social Security Administration to abandon a destructive plan to restrict telephone service or secured paid sick leave for 170,000 restaurant workers if it was hidden behind a paywall.
This decision, however, has come at a very high cost. Similar newsletters that paywall their content have two or three times as many paid subscribers, on a percentage basis. That means we have fewer resources available to pursue our work than if we took a traditional approach that maximized revenue.
I still believe that forgoing a paywall is the right decision for Popular Information because it is central to our mission. I am being transparent about the consequences, because I hope it will inspire more people to support our work by upgrading to a paid subscription.
You can make a real difference for $50 per year or $6 per month.
The lawsuit cites the California Department of Insurance (CDI), which concluded that State Farm “delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives.” CDI found that in more than half of the claims it reviewed related to the LA wildfires, State Farm violated state law.
The gap between the ad and the reality facing State Farm’s California policyholders, the lawsuit alleges, constitutes “a materially false statement about the nature of State Farm’s services, aimed at California consumers and likely to deceive them.”
Los Angeles County attempted to resolve its issues directly with State Farm, but the company allegedly “declined to substantially comply with the People’s requests for voluntary production of documents or a later-issued administrative subpoena.”
As State Farm slow-rolled California policyholders, its coffers continued to swell. The company “ended 2025 with $170 billion in net assets — $24.8 billion more than a year earlier.”