Most carriers still price wildfire risk at the territory level, which means a mitigated home and an unmaintained one often carry the same premium. The models behind those prices were built to measure hazard, not vulnerability, and the difference costs prepared homeowners every renewal cycle.
Andrew Engler (pictured), founder and chief executive of RockRose Risk, explains why that model is broken, what verified mitigation data does to a carrier conversation, and how brokers can use it to get nonrenewed clients back into the private market.
Most pricing models are built around geography: where fires have historically occurred. That tells carriers little about whether a specific home survives one. Engler calls it mispricing in both directions.
"The models carriers rely on were built to measure hazard, meaning where fires happen, not vulnerability, meaning whether a specific building survives one," he said. "When you price hazards but ignore vulnerability, you overcharge the prepared and undercharge the unprepared. That is not conservative underwriting."
The evidence supports that assessment. Research from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) found that an ember-resistant buffer in the first five feet around a home cuts its wildfire ignition risk in half. This material difference in exposure is something that territory-level models cannot detect, Engler argues.
"ZIP code models cannot see ember resistant vents, a Class A roof, cleared fuel in the first five feet, or a community that has spent a decade on fuel reduction work," he said.
None of those variables show up in a territory-level assessment, and that is precisely why the model fails. As Engler puts it, wildfire risk "does not respect ZIP codes. It moves parcel by parcel, and it is decided by details you can only verify standing on the property."
The pricing model's limitations create a practical opening for brokers willing to work at the property level. Whether a wildfire risk is placed or declined often turns less on the underlying exposure than on the quality and specificity of what a broker submits. A standard submission asks the carrier to trust a territory model it already suspects is imprecise. According to Engler, a documented submission replaces that uncertainty with evidence.
"When we submit, the underwriter gets documented, verified mitigation, including photos, measurements, and work mapped to standards like Safer from Wildfires," he said. "It changes the conversation from 'no' to 'at what price.'"
That shift is consequential. It moves wildfire risk from automatic declination into negotiation, and positions the broker not as an advocate for a difficult risk but as a source of verified information the carrier's own model was never designed to produce.
"Same properties, same carriers," Engler said. "The only thing that changed is that someone finally showed the carrier what the risk actually is."
California's regulatory response to its property insurance crisis has gained some traction. Under the state's Sustainable Insurance Strategy (SIS), carriers that use forward-looking catastrophe models must write at least 85% of their statewide market share in wildfire-distressed areas, according to the California Department of Insurance. Nine carriers, including Farmers, Travelers, and CSAA, have publicly committed to the framework. This is a sign that the market is beginning, slowly, to reorient.
But as Engler notes, regulation moves in years. Nonrenewals arrive in 30 days.
The California FAIR Plan held 684,388 residential policies as of March 2026, according to plan data. Those homeowners cannot wait for the market to stabilize.
"The bridge between now and when that bargain fully pays off is mitigation you can verify," Engler said. "Properties that can document their risk reduction are the ones carriers reach for first as they come back."
For brokers, that dynamic defines the immediate opportunity. When a client receives a nonrenewal, the first task is to reframe what it means.
"Understand that it usually was not about your property," Engler said. "It was about a model's view of your area." The distinction matters because it changes what comes next.
"The single most effective thing you can do is make your risk legible: harden the structure, document it, and get it in front of carriers who will actually look," Engler said. "Mitigation is not just fire safety anymore. Since California mandated wildfire safety discounts, it is the one lever a property owner controls that directly moves their premium."
Brokers who can connect mitigation documentation to carrier placement are offering something the market currently cannot get anywhere else. The coverage-access conversation and the mitigation conversation are the same conversation. The brokers who understand that will be the ones clients call when a nonrenewal letter arrives.
