Assembly members hear testimony at the first
joint info hearing on wildfire insurance in
Santa Rosa on October 9th, 2023.
Nearly six years to the day since the start of 2017’s catastrophic Tubbs Fire; state legislators gathered in Santa Rosa, this time for a public hearing to talk about wildfires and California’s ailing home insurance market.
Multiple home insurers – including State Farm, the state’s largest – have stopped issuing new policies. And many have dropped existing customers, citing unreasonable financial risks.
Monday’s meeting was co-hosted by the State Assembly’s insurance committee, chaired by Lisa Calderon.
“We’re hearing of more and more homeowners going naked, which is an insurance term, describing when a homeowner decides to carry no insurance coverage,” Calderon said.
As well as a select committee focused on wildfire prevention, chaired by Damon Connolly.
The politicians invited firefighting officials and experts, insurance industry representatives, consumer advocates, and climate scientists.
“It is our goal to ensure that future actions aimed at stabilizing the marketplace and expanding coverage for homeowners are done so with input and collaboration from stakeholders and members of the community,” Connolly said.
One conclusion everyone agreed on: something needs to change.
But, Karen Collins of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, an industry group, says the impacts to California’s insurance market are not isolated.
“The U.S. property insurance market is in fact facing the hardest market cycle in over a generation, and it’s impacting catastrophe exposed markets, really across the U.S.” Collins said.
Reforms to the state’s FAIR plan – the insurance market of last resort – as well reforms to allow risk assessment models to factor for fire mitigation efforts, have both been touted as part of the overall solution to California’s insurance market woes.
While a recent legislative effort to overhaul the state’s insurance market fell apart, California’s Insurance Commissioner, Ricardo Lara, has new rules to compel insurers to again cover a set percentage of policies in wildfire prone areas.
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.