This post originally ran in the Sacramento Report.
The state Department of Insurance last week released a plan to increase insurance policies for areas with high wildfire risk.
The plan includes a statewide map showing areas where wildfire risk policies are concentrated. Nineteen San Diego areas made the list, including numerous backcountry communities.
We took a look at those areas in April, when State Farm announced non-renewal of 72,000 policies statewide, including more than 2,000 in San Diego.
Under the new plan, companies would commit to writing policies for homes in high-risk parts of California, allowing more people to move off the high-priced FAIR plan onto conventional insurance. In return, insurance companies will get to use “catastrophe modeling” to predict future losses when raising rates, instead of relying on historical wildfire records.
State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said the new system would offer customers better options and more stable costs. But consumer advocates warn that catastrophe modeling can be unreliable, and say it hiked policy costs in Florida.
State Sen. Catherine Blakespear also hosted a webinar on high risk insurance last week, which covered reasons for the collapse of insurance markets and steps you can take to keep their homes safe.