SALT LAKE CITY — After some of the country’s biggest insurers left California entirely last year, many Utahns are now concerned about the same fate happening to them.

Luckily, explained Matt Child, CEO of Utah Independent Agents, residents don’t have an access problem as they do in other places across the country.

“One thing that’s great about Utah is it’s a very competitive marketplace,” he said. “So there are a lot of different carriers. So one carrier may not want to write in a particular area for a multitude of reasons, there’s usually another carrier that will.”

Child did say that some Utahns are being dropped by insurers because those companies rely on national mapping tools that assess wildfire risk.

“The mapping situation is not, in my opinion, accurate enough and detailed enough that the average consumer is going to look at that and say, ‘You know, my home is fine, but my neighbor’s home isn’t,” he explained.

Rep. Casey Snider (R-Paradise) is introducing a bill this legislative session that would create a state-specific map of risk areas. For now, Child shared that the best homeowners can do is control whatever risk they can.

“What a homeowner can really do is look at their home, look at the exterior of the home,” he said. “What can they do to create defensible space? Does it mean trimming and maintaining the bushes?

“Does it mean clearing away brush from the exterior of their yard to make sure that if a brush fire does happen that their yard is well maintained, it’s well-groomed so that a fire is not likely to spread into their home versus another?”

Child added that those in the state who don’t own a house should make sure they have renters insurance.

“Even if you don’t own the home, you own a lot of things inside,” he said. “Whether it be your clothes, your individual personal properties, etc. Those types of things would be covered in the event of a fire loss.”