Column: California's fire insurance market reaches a crisis

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In California’s foothills and flatlands, in high-income enclaves like Malibu and communities of rural artisans, residents are facing a crisis of fire insurance, columnist hiltzikm writes.

for failing to use all the regulatory authority over home insurers granted him by Proposition 103 of 1988, which established his office as an elective post. “As Insurance Commissioner, you have broad power to prevent insurance companies from unfairly penalizing homeowners that you are not using,” the group told Lara by letter.

Lara’s department, however, believes it needs legislative authority to verify the industry’s risk underwriting models, as well as to require insurers to cover or renew a “hardened” property. Lara says he is taking the fire insurance issue seriously. He has made several visits to wildfire zones and this summerto work with residents in those areas afflicted by nonrenewals and rising premiums.

While everyone’s attention is focused on the wildfires spreading devastation across California, a couple of developments tangentially related have gone largely unnoticed. Surplus line insurers also have seen at least an “uptick” in homeowner business, according to Cliston Brown, a spokesman for the Surplus Line Association of California, who also testified on Aug. 21. Homeowner coverage rose in the first six months of this year to 2.3% of total premiums among those insurers, after running at 1.4%-1.8% during the last five years.

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Weather_West hiltzikm Since there's no longer a home on your property, there's nothing to insure. -- Cancellation Notice to the owner of scorched land. 😧

hiltzikm Insurance money in general is going to run out sometime. Especially as ClimateChange reeks havoc on our country. But let's keep kicking cans down the road & ignore the compounding crisis.

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