On Monday, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced that his office has formed a partnership with Governor Newsom’s Administration to establish home and community hardening standards statewide to reduce risk for those living in wildfire prone areas as well as to help make insurance more readily available and affordable in high fire risk areas. The partnership includes the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (CalOES), the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), all of which have been evaluating the effectiveness and necessity for community-wide and individual homeowner mitigation standards as California’s annual wildfire seasons have worsened.
While the hardening program is still in development and the role of the insurance industry is unclear, the new partnership hopes to develop a statewide retrofitting program for communities and homeowners in high fire risk areas that will ultimately lead to not only safeguarding them from high severity wildfires, but will also incentivize insurers to offer more affordable policies in areas where they are currently withdrawing coverage. The various agencies and departments are slated to begin meeting sometime this month, although it is unclear if those meetings will be open to the public. The Commissioner’s full press release on the partnership can be viewed on the Department of Insurance website.