insurance Suit accuses Eaton fire inspector of fraud, theft

An Encino-based public insurance adjuster and a series of related companies allegedly submitted false claims, stole insurance funds and failed to complete repairs for more than a dozen clients, including two Eaton fire victims, according to a newly filed class-action lawsuit and a complaint from the state Department of Insurance.

The Department of Insurance is now moving to fine and revoke the licenses of Aleksandr Guldshtadt and his company, Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates, and to reject a license application from

his wife, Evghenia Gaiju, as result of its investigation, documents showed.

The revocation is pending a hearing expected to take place within the next month.

State investigators believe Guldshtadt controlled Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates while having financial interests in at least three of the contractors hired using client insurance funds. It is illegal in California for an insurance adjuster to “receive remuneration from or have a finance interest in” any firm that obtains business related to an insurance claim handled by the adjuster.

Gaiju is considered to have “aided and abetted” Guldshtadt, the complaint states.

Those related companies include Evolve Construction & Restoration, CalMaster Restoration and WD Contractor Services Inc, according to the Department of Insurance. Contractor licenses for each were issued to Guldshtadt or listed him as having at least 10% ownership stake, investigators alleged. One company was registered to Guldshtadt’s mother-in-law and two used the same business address as Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates.

Altadena resident Nadine Isenberg filed a class-action lawsuit April 30 that her attorney, Brett Moore, estimates could include 40 to 100 other victims across the state and potentially nationwide. Moore alleges Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates has taken advantage of not only families impacted by the January wildfires here in Los Angeles County, but other disasters as well.

“There are multiple victims, it is not just from the Eaton fire,” Moore said. “He owns Evolve, he owns Nationwide Insurance Claim Advocates, he owns the people who do the testing. So all of the money that insurance pays out goes to him, goes into his pocket.”

Reached by phone, Guldshtadt denied the allegations.

“I don’t own those companies myself,” he said. “The (same) address doesn’t mean that I own the company.”

In a text message, Guldshtadt said his attorneys are in the process of responding to the Department of Insurance.

“There is not a single victim that lost any money due to our work,” he said.

The state’s investigation included interviews with 15 alleged victims, stretching from San Francisco to Bakersfield, Long Beach, Altadena and Pasadena, over a five-year period. The company allegedly forged a signature, filed false claims and “used illegal means in the collection or attempted collection of a debt.”

“Respondent Guldshtadt harassed one Victim until she passed away and then harassed Victim’s sister for unearned fees,” the investigators wrote. “Two of Respondents’ representatives drove to the home of the other Victim, who was 80 years old at the time, and demanded a fiduciary check when it was accidentally sent to that Victim’s home.”

Several of the victims alleged they entered into contracts with Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates or one of the other related entities to repair roofs or water leaks, only to have the company stop responding after its employees tore up kitchens and walls.

Others stated the company tricked them into signing contracts, intercepted insurance money and then kept significant portions without doing any work.

One former client alleged Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates and WD Contractor Services cut out water damaged walls, installed humidifiers and only returned 10 days later to remove the humidifiers and then never showed up again. Her insurance provider ultimately denied her claim and stated she would have to pay $28,000 to repair the walls.

WD Contractor later tried to bill her $5,740 for the work it didn’t finish and threatened to harm her credit and to sue, according to investigators.

Three of the victims were coerced into signing contracts presented exclusively in English, though they could speak and read only Spanish.

In Long Beach, a woman contacted her insurance company after noticing a water leak in December 2023 and, a month later, a man showed up at her home and gave her the impression he’d been sent by the insurance company. She signed a contract under that belief, only to later learn that was not the case. Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates submitted a claim on her behalf and would not provide her with a list of the supposed work that had been done, according to investigators.

In Pasadena, a 65-year-old stated she received a phone call from Evolve offering to provide smoke and damage remediation services and was “cajoled into signing a Public Adjuster contract” with Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates. Though her insurer, AAA, estimated the work would cost roughly $15,000, Evolve and Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates submitted a claim for $215,865 to the insurance company that included items that “could not possibly be attributed to her property, including removing creosote from a chimney that does not exist.”

Isenberg’s lawsuit indicates she was referred to Evolve in February for the repair and remediation of her home damaged by the Eaton fire. She alleges she unknowingly signed an agreement granting Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates permission to serve as a public adjuster on her behalf while filling out a stack of documents provided by Evolve.

The two companies submitted claims of more than $200,000 to Farmers Insurance, including costs for cleaning carpet, though she has “very little carpet in her home and certainly not in the square footage identified in the estimate,” the lawsuit states.

“She looked at her estimates and said to herself, ‘this doesn’t look right,’ ” Moore said.

Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates received checks from Farmers but did not pass along the funds to Isenberg until after the lawsuit was filed, Moore said. When Isenberg requested that her insurance company cease communicating with Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates, the insurance company informed her “that her public adjusting agreement with NICA required her to continue to use NICA as a public adjuster and that Farmers was bound to continue to communicate with Guldshtadt,” the lawsuit states.

Moore said the hope is that the class-action lawsuit will help others get out of their contracts with Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates.

Guldshtadt, in his phone conversation, called the lawsuit frivolous and said the complaint doesn’t qualify as a class-action lawsuit because it only has one former client on board so far. “This is not a class-action lawsuit by any means,” he said.

He acknowledged the carpet cleaning estimate may have been a mistake on the company’s part, but stressed that the estimate was not paid out and that his company did not receive “a single dollar” from Isenberg.

“It does not constitute something fraudulent by any means,” he said.

Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates had only about three clients related to the Eaton fire and is “not doing much work on the fires at all,” Guldshtadt claimed.

“It is absolutely nonsense litigation,” he said.

Nationwide Insurance Claim Advocates’ Yelp and Better Business Bureau pages feature two dozen additional — and similar — complaints.

“This company forged my signature on a letter of representation in order to get more money from my insurance company,” wrote one reviewer from Illinois. “They had 3 separate checks sent directly to them and were able to cash them without my or my mortgage companies endorsement which were both on the checks as well.”

“DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT use this company or their other company, WD contractors,” wrote a Los Angeles resident. “My kitchen, living room, laundry room and bathroom are gutted to the studs. It’s been like this for months.”

California’s case against Guldshtadt and Nationwide Insurance Claims Advocates alleges that both failed to report disciplinary actions in Utah and Colorado as well. At least one other fraud lawsuit has been filed in Colorado.

The Department of Insurance intends to seek tens of thousands of dollars in penalties against Guldshtadt and his company, including $5,000 to $50,000 for each violation involving someone 65 years or older and $5,000 to $10,000 for each unfair or deceptive act.

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