Wildfires cause turmoil in CA property insurance market

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Thousands of California homeowners have lost their insurance policies as insurers pull out of areas that are at risk of fire damage or stop insuring homes altogether.

FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2019, file photo Woodbridge firefighter Joe Zurilgen passes a burning home as the Kincade Fire rages in Healdsburg, Calif. California's massive property insurance market is feeling the effects of three straight years of damaging wildfires. Insurers have pulled out of some markets and canceled thousands of policies, forcing regulators to step in and expand a state program that homeowners often turn to as a last resort.

“It’s constant worry and frustration. You know you’re covered now, but I might have to look for a new policy next year yet again.” Michitsch says he’s never made a claim on his insurance and never had fire damage. While the insurance industry says the California property insurance market is resilient, state lawmakers and officials have had to scramble to keep the market from grinding to a halt from the unexpected additional risk.

The fires of 2017 and 2018 caused a combined $25.3 billion in damages according to the California Department of Insurance. That’s exponentially higher than the previous wildfires in 2015 and 2008, which caused $1.1 billion and $719 million in damages, respectively. While some insurers are pulling out and others are reconsidering how they price property insurance, it is still available in one form or another to every homeowner, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Karl Susman, owner of Susman Insurance Agency in Los Angeles, says the average annual premium on a homeowner policy plus FAIR to cover fire now costs around $2,500 a year, three times higher than it was three years ago.

 

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The morals of the insurance business. Laugh next time you see one of their caring advertisements.

Is that property insurance company pull out in the speaker of the house Pilose’s San Francisco Bay home area district? That would be interesting to see- then change WOULD occur in the West as the leftist coast wants this pressure to work run by more of the Democratic Party. Why?

Dirty pool by the insurance companies. Akin to healthcare plans that would not cover preexisting conditions.

Unfortunate but California knew better than to build homes where wildfires instantly happen.

Fires in CA seem to be a bigger threat than storms on the East coast.

Just about like insurance if they can’t make money you will not see them

Insurance is a system intended to help the few unlucky by spreading the cost across many. But in America, once the insurers have to pay out, they terminate the programs. These are state sanctioned scams.

California continues it's dive into the abyss

Climate catastrofe is adversely affecting people, properties& it's becoming irreversible in this decade.Unless we all act with incessant masses of people doing Civil Disobedience till we switch to Solar, wind, geothermal, vegan & stop drilling the ocean to save climate&humanity!

Yeee. Capitalism inside of CA socialism. Loose loose.

I thought that goes against CA. law regarding insurance companies.

Insurance companies are Not Your Friends & not there to honestly keep you and your family Protected. Next to Banks, they are untrustworthy to the 9s.

Thank your tree hugger friends for a lousy Forrest management program

There are also California FAIR plans or other DIC policies for the fire risks, and the homeowners policies take on the rest of the perils.

There is also California FAIR plans or other DIC policies for the fire risks and the homeowners policies take on the rest of the perils.

This is misleading. Many insurance companies were non-renewing policies in high risk areas, but have since halted because California passed a law that prevents insurance companies from cancelling a policy up to a year after an area has been declared an emergency area by the state

Who's liable?

Of course

How many times can people rebuild rebuild rebuild from the fire that they know is going to happen again & again.

That should be illegal and all those insurance should be banned by those states including life, home, auto components if they cherry pick their coverage

NOMOPAIN4ME I understand. The shore anywhere is also an issue.

Maybe, it's time to rethink about not building housing in fire prone areas.

One industry that should be govt controlled. Take the profit n cost of running all those corps into one universal insurance to cover home, auto, health, illness & death.

Thinkin Of you JenaC2 !! Y’all ok 🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻🙏🏻

Cave

About time! Just makes others have to pay for their desire to live in Californication.

Terrible. Greedy SOB’s

Finally

Just like in hurricane zones.

Californian’s made their own beds by voting for liberals that never do fire prevention and always invite satan in to hang out.

so at least in one aspect, it IS going to be the private sector that makes us address the climate crisis. as much i'm generally wary of allowing private concerns to dictate public policy, somebody's going to have the make the hard calls.

People from shit states no one desires to live in calling California a shit hole is goddamned hilarious to me

Herbert_L_Reed All business should pull out of California. Let the state crash and burn! MAGA

Yes, yes everyone move away so the cost of living goes down and I can finally afford to go home. I don’t care if that’s not how it works. Make it be the way it works.

Cali need to get a state insurance plan for its residents... periodT

So what do you do w all ur money CA. Dont feed or shelter the homeless. Dont take care of your forests. Dont have free health care. Who's running that place anyways.

Would you insure someone that lives below a dam that has been told the dam is cracked and state leaders refuse to fix it? If so, I want to buy insurance from you. Call me

And the rich keep getting richer

Good... Don't Live in Wildfire areas...

At least they have electricity. Oh. Wait... CaliforniaIsNorthernVenezuela

Do the insurers have to reimburse their customers then?

They should stay the insurance should be sued for being so greedy.

Herbert_L_Reed Insurance companies have made there money. Now it’s time to run. They should have to reimburse every costumer every penny they paid them.

Why aren't Republicans passing legislation to prevent these insurance companies from acknowledging climate change since it doesn't exist?

YAY BIG BUSINESS!

A cost of climate change

Who can be surprised that the insurance companies are pulling out. Same reason everyone else is leaving. Well, not everyone :)

Maybe it's a good idea to deter future building in areas where fires frequently destroy everything

Maybe we shouldn’t build in areas that burn cyclically?

Insurance is a scam.

Saves them a ton of money and the insurance companies never pay up anyway. Wish I didn’t have to carry insurance, it goes up every year and she’s my mortgage impossible to pay.

Insurance is an ultimately useless scam

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