Insurance companies have refused to renew nearly 350,000 California home insurance policies in areas at high risk for wildfire since the state began collecting data in 2015, according to an Associated Press report.
Loss of homeowners’ insurance – and skyrocketing premium prices – are a consequence of the deadly spate of wildfires the state has suffered in recent years, the AP reported. Joel Laucher, a state insurance department consultant, told California legislators last week that insurers are requesting premium increases “in record numbers.” The insurance department received 69 requests for rate increases in 2018, compared to just 25 in 2015.
However, the insurance industry said that the number of non-renewed policies remained fairly stable year over year, and that many insurers are still offering policies in areas at high risk of wildfire, the AP reported.
“Insurers remain committed to covering homes in rural and urban zones, despite paying out more than $26 billion in claims from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires,” Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federal of California, and Mark Sektan, vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said in a joint statement. “Those claims payments will rebuild and revitalize these communities.”
But the latest data doesn’t include non-renewals resulting from the Redding and Paradise wildfires last year – meaning non-renewals could climb even higher next year, the AP reported.
“This data should be a wake-up call for state and local policymakers that without action to reduce the risk from extreme wildfires and preserve the insurance market, we could see communities unraveling,” said California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.
