The CA department of Insurance (CDI) covers every type of insurance sold in CA. The only type we are interested here is Homeowner’s, which has its own category on its website.
The Homeowner’s section is a bit meager, and does not provide much help for those of us who cannot find coverage. It does mention the insurer of last resort, The CA Fair Plan, which “should only be considered after a diligent search for coverage in the traditional insurance market.”
The CDI’s website also has a separate section that is not easy to find, focused on wildfire response and readiness. In one of its almost hidden sections one can find interesting insurance data on renewals and non-renewals down to county and zip code, on wildfire-related losses, Fair Plan statistics, and statistics on exposure to wildfire risk.
The most interesting part of the website, as far as insurance retention is concerned, is the Safer from Wildfire section. This section lists 10 actions that will give you discounts on your insurance policy, based on house hardening and defensive perimeter mitigation measures. While the discounts, in practice, are very low, the hope is that, if you mitigate wildfire risk by enacting these measures, your insurance company may lower your risk rating and possibly keep your policy active.
Another critical section, although obscure and difficult to find, is that of insurance coverage cancelation appeals. It is critical to remember two points in the process:
- you must first submit a Complaint and Request for Action to your insurer or the WCIRB
- that you only have 30 days from the receipt of your insurer’s response (rejection, or unfavorable decision)
Finally, if you need to find a new insurer, there is an insurance finder page, which allows you to select insurers that actually write policies in very high risk areas. In practice, however, many of us in Fire Zones 2 and 3, who got canceled, found that it is impossible to find new coverage, and that the only resource for us is the CA Fair Plan.