Bill Burr Shouts ‘Free Luigi!’ As Insurance Companies Pocket Premiums After Canceling Fire Coverage
As thousands of Californians lose their homes to devastating wildfires, Bill Burr wants to know which home insurance companies that will inevitably attempt to avoid payouts on their policies have shareholders’ meetings coming up.
Stand-up legend and perennially irate podcaster Burr was one of many comics who reveled in the brief shockwave that the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson sent through the C-suite class back in December of 2024. In the days following the shooting, Burr roasted the mainstream media for wagging its finger at the millions of Americans who, after struggling under medical debt, skyrocketing premiums and denied claims for decades, enjoyed a moment of collective schadenfreude on social media by making too-soon jokes about Thompson finding out his very life was deductible.
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As soon as the fires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods of Los Angeles began destroying homes early last week, news reports emerged about home insurance companies exponentially increasing rates or canceling policies entirely in the affected areas en masse mere months before the disaster began. Last night, Burr appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where he called out cable news channels for whipping up a frenzy over looters hitting wildfire-affected areas without properly covering the greatest pillagers of all:
“They’re talking about looting, but CNN and Fox News are not gonna bring up the insurance companies that are just going to keep everybody’s premiums and still give themselves a bonus,” Burr ranted about the news coverage of the wildfires, then shouting to an elated audience and an increasingly nervous Jimmy Kimmel, “Free Luigi!”
Instead of moving off the subject as his host hoped he would, Burr returned to his ongoing, month-long diatribe about the reaction to the Thompson shooting among the rich and powerful. “I love how they acted surprised, like, ‘(unintelligent grunting), why did that happen??? I have no idea!’” Burr continued. “He wrote on the bullets why it happened!”
“Oh, we’re back to Luigi, okay, yeah, yeah,” Kimmel floundered.
Burr proudly replied, “I never left Luigi!”
Kimmel finally managed to steer Burr off the topic by asking him how he reacts as a husband and a father in an emergency situation, but it’s clear that both Thompson and accused shooter Luigi Mangione are still at the forefront of Burr’s mind despite the destruction that’s directly affecting his family and his community. And, when the battle to rebuild the thousands of homes lost in the ongoing fire turns ugly, hopefully the insurance CEOs keep Mangione’s name in the back of their heads at all times along with the words “deny,” “depose” and “defend.”