Add The California Post on Google California’s home insurance crisis continues to deepen.
Homeowners, even those far away from fire hazards, are struggling to find insurance policies — and face staggering prices.
As The California Post reports, even homes built in suburbs like Menifee — deep in the Inland Empire and a long distance from fire-prone forests — are almost uninsurable.
Homeowners are being forced to pay huge premiums on policies with high deductibles. Or, worse, they are being forced onto the California FAIR Plan. What’s supposed to be the insurer of last resort has become the first resort, and often only choice available, for many California homeowners.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are several things California can do to make homes more insurable: The first is to fix the insurance market.
For many years, California did not allow insurers to set premiums to include future risks. That kept premiums artificially low — and caused many insurers to leave the state. Ironically, the more insurers leave, the more expensive insurance becomes.
California homeowners, even those far away from fire hazards, are struggling to find insurance policies — and face staggering prices. Getty Images Even homes built in suburbs like Menifee — deep in the Inland Empire and a long distance from fire-prone forests — are almost uninsurable. Getty Images Gavin Newsom recently signed a law to require insurers to cover smoke damage. While a welcome change, it won’t help if there are no policies on the market. The state needs a more flexible approach to pricing that brings insurance companies back.
Second, California needs to mitigate the wildfire risk. The state must become much more aggressive in clearing brush from forests and chaparral; it should expand responsible logging, which can remove dead wood and create natural firebreaks and access roads.
California also needs to redesign urban water systems to make them more decentralized: We need neighborhood water tanks for when reservoirs run dry. Fire engines need to carry pumps to use homeowners’ pools for water in emergencies. And — since many reservoirs are covered — we need more helicopter dip tanks to help fight fires from the air.
Third, we need better leadership. Outgoing California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara was notable for his absence. He traveled constantly, while insurance companies were dropping customers or dragging their feet. Lara took action in his last few months in office to hold insurance companies accountable — but that’s not good enough.
Both candidates in the upcoming election are Democrats who offer radically different approaches: Jane Kim wants the state to take over the fire insurance market. Ben Allen wants to help communities “harden” themselves against the risk.
Whoever wins needs to take the job more seriously than Lara did.
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