From the Washington Post, August 29:
Allstate will increase rates by an average of 34.1 percent as part of the state’s deal with the industry to expand coverage to homeowners in risky areas.
California insurance officials have approved Allstate’s request to raise insurance rates for homeowners by an average of about 34 percent. It’s the largest premium hike of any major carrier in the past three years — and the latest gut punch for residents as the state continues its ongoing push-pull with insurance companies over how much people should pay to live in wildfire-prone areas.
The Allstate rate increases, which will go into effect in November, will hit about 350,000 households across a range of regions, from coastal communities such as San Mateo and Santa Barbara counties, to inland areas such as Fresno. The hikes will also vary greatly: Five homeowners in Central California’s Mariposa County will have to pay about 203 percent more for their premiums, while another resident in the same county will see theirs spike by 385 percent, filing data shows.
Two out of 178 or so people in the tiny community of Snelling, Calif., will see a 232 percent increase. In Sonoma County, which has seen some of the state’s most destructive fires, rates will rise by an average of 164 percent. Others, however, may see their rates drop by as much as 57 percent, according to the filings.
This hike is far from a sudden move and reflects how the state’s insurance department has been trying to balance keeping carriers from ditching or not expanding coverage for residents while enabling them to charge more for climate change-related costs.
Like other disaster-prone states, California, one of the world’s largest insurance markets, has been reeling from a growing crisis over coverage. In the past year or so, seven out of the state’s top 12 carriers, including Allstate and State Farm, pulled back coverage, blaming wildfires, the rising costs of such threats and state regulators’ refusal to approve rate hikes. They have claimed that homeowners’ premiums do not match the risk they face and have pressured the state’s insurance department to make some big changes.
Historically, California residents have paid less for homeowners insurance than the national average and much less than other disaster-prone states. Florida residents, for example, are shelling out an average of about $4,000 a year for a homeowner’s policy, according to the Insurance Information Institute, while Californians are paying about $1,300.
Last September, California’s insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, introduced what he called “historic” reforms in an attempt to stabilize the market, bring more insurers back and get more residents out of the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort that has ballooned as more private carriers dropped residents. The deal is aimed at allowing carriers to charge residents for the rising costs of climate change in exchange for them expanding coverage to at-risk communities.
And even with these changes, “California still has lower insurance costs on average than many states,” said Michael Soller, a spokesman with the state’s insurance department, who also noted that these rate hikes were part of their deal to get insurers to write more policies.
“For the first time in California history, insurance companies are agreeing to write more high-risk policies and take homes back from the FAIR Plan provided the ability to use risk assessment tools such as catastrophe modeling and reinsurance,” Soller said in a statement....
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Although the story focused on global warming as a cause of the premium increases, it should have at least mentioned that California home prices have doubled in the last decade:
But it doesn't. The increase in valuations would imply at least a doubling in the replacement cost of a residence which would imply <grabs abacus> at least a doubling of premiums to cover the cost.
Also in California (San Jose Mercury-News, September 3):
New Stanford hydrogel to reduce damage of California wildfires
Imagine this: Under an orange ash-filled sky, intensely hot wildfire flames engulf a freshly evacuated wooden farmhouse. The inferno swallows trees, bushes and wildlife, spreading quickly across the horizon.
Hours later, the house remains unscathed — just covered with patches of jelly-like foam.
A group of California researchers hope to make this scene the future of wildfire containment. Scientists at Stanford and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo have developed a long-lasting, water-enhancing gel that could be sprayed on critical structures — homes, bridges and roads — to prevent them from burning during wildfires.
The research, published earlier this month in Advanced Materials, comes as California and the Western United States see increasing wildfire risk due to rising temperatures and dry weather caused in part by climate change. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state’s main firefighting agency, estimated that 834,766 acres have burned statewide so far this year. Much of this acreage comes from the over 5,500 wildland fires and almost 3,000 structure fires that have burned in the state this year, according to Cal Fire....
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Alternatively, don't build homes in wilderness/semi-wilderness areas. And definitely don't string electrical wires in those areas.
