Wildfires can take lives, dramatically change the landscape and destroy everything in their path — which, naturally, includes your personal property.
What can make matters worse, though, is learning that your home is no longer an insurable risk. The mortgage on your home remains a personal financial obligation, with your lender requiring you carry an active insurance policy. And if there isn’t an insurance company willing to offer coverage, you could find yourself in a protection pickle.
That’s a situation some homeowners in California are facing. State Farm and Allstate, two of the largest homeowners insurance companies in the country, announced in May and June that they would no longer accept new applications for homeowners policies. Three other major players — Chubb, AIG, and Farmers — have modified what they view as an acceptable risk. Wildfire risk was one of the main factors in their decision and Californians suffer from more wildfires and wildfire-based property damage than the residents of any other state.
Could that same set of circumstances affect policyholders here in Washington State?
The short answer is yes — but the best answer is that we can work to dramatically reduce the chance it happens.
The key is through mitigation efforts at several different levels. If individuals, communities, and the state work together to reduce the frequency and severity of property damage associated with wildland fires, it will create a more inviting risk for insurance companies.
Individually, homeowners can engage in sensible property management — simple practices, like clearing roofs and gutters, removing flammable materials from wall exteriors, and installing mesh screening to keep out embers. The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) is developing the best science available to protect your home from wildfire risk. Additionally, the National Fire Protection Association has a Firewise program (www.firewise.org) with guidelines on the immediate, intermediate and extended protection zones around your home, and how to best prepare each of them for wildfire threats.
At the local level, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources recommends creating a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). A CWPP identifies and prioritizes areas for hazardous fuel reduction treatments and makes recommendations on how to reduce structural ignitability — essentially, a plan that lays out how to make large-scale fires less likely to spread. It can also cover wildfire response and hazard mitigation, along with community preparedness and structure protection. Communities in 26 Washington counties have developed a CWPP since 2005.
At the statewide level, building codes that require certain fire resistance measures — like exterior construction materials in designated fire hazard severity zones — have been shown to increase a home’s chance of surviving a wildfire. Washington’s Wildlife-Urban Interface code (WUI) includes requirements for fire-resistant construction materials and defensible spaces around the home to reduce vegetation that could potentially fuel a fire.
Some communities should consider what Paradise, California, has done as they recover from the 2018 Camp Fire: Accept the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety standards into their city ordinances to create a more resilient community.
Additionally, the ‘Cascading Impacts of Wildfire’ bill was passed this legislative session to fund the expansion the Wildfire Ready Neighbors program from Eastern Washington into Western Washington. Since 2021 it’s helped more than 4,000 residents on the east side of the state better prepare their homes and communities against the threat of wildfires.
The new measure also provides funding to assess the health impacts of wildfire smoke — which we’ve experienced at previously unseen levels the past few summers — and evacuation plans and post-fire safety strategies.
That smoke, wafting in seemingly every summer, is one of our annual reminders that climate change is here and we need to adapt to the longer, dryer, and hotter fire seasons.
We also need to adapt to the changing — and correlated — realities of the insurance market.
As your insurance commissioner, I work with my staff to make sure our insurance rates stay reasonable and insurance companies treat policyholders fairly. As a result, we enjoy a robust insurance market in Washington.
But if we don’t work to protect the insurability of homes encroaching on timber and grass lands, and thus in the path of any potential wildfires, the dangers of fire move into a new realm. That’s what our friends in the Golden State are seeing now.
Mike Kreidler was elected Washington state Insurance Commissioner in 2000 and was re-elected to a sixth term in 2020. He currently vice-chairs the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Climate Risk and Resilience Executive Task Force, which coordinates the group’s discussion and engagement on climate risk issues.
