Washington consumers most at risk from wildfires deserve our help

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The following is an open letter to Washington consumers from Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer, Medical Lake Mayor Terri Cooper, and Steve Brooks, Executive Director of Washington Fire Chiefs, on the importance of bringing transparency to homeowners about their wildfire risk and giving them additional resources to protect their property.

Washington state and much of the west is experiencing a snow drought, and that does not bode well for our wildfire season. No one understands the impact of this better than fire chiefs whose teams battle these fires and mayors who have had to rebuild their communities afterwards. Everyone, including insurance companies, recognizes the growing risk to homeowners. It’s up to all of us to help our communities improve their resiliency, and this starts with supporting the property owners who are at greatest risk.

The number of homeowners who have been nonrenewed or canceled by their insurance company has doubled since 2021, growing from 11,763 to 24,106. Some of these include cancellations due to a wildfire risk score. 

We believe that people deserve to know more about this score and the options they have for doing something about it, especially if it could keep them insured.

Those two messages resonated the most after the Wildfire Mitigation and Resiliency Standards Work Group — a group project between the Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR)— delivered its report to the Legislature (PDF 1.02MB) in December. They’re the impetus for two bills we’re supporting this legislative session — Senate Bill 5928 (Concerning wildfire risk models and score disclosure) and Senate Bill 6079 (Reducing nonrenewals & cancellations of insurance policies due to wildfire risk). We’re grateful to Senators Warnick, Short, Riccelli, and Representatives Ramel, Engell, Hall, and Abell for their support.

Wildfires and the risks they pose have increased over the last decade. At the same time, people living in dry, fire-prone areas are having trouble both maintaining insurance coverage and finding answers when their insurance company non-renews them.

Marvin Lindberg shared his experience in an insurance town hall in Spokane in September.  He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on mitigation work for his rural Spokane property.

As he said during the town hall, and then expanded on in an interview with the Spokesman-Review, the work included thinning trees and installing a 7,000-gallon tank in his yard, while his neighbor installed compatible hookups on their 80,000-gallon swimming pool.

“All of a sudden, I get a love note in the mail saying my homeowners insurance is canceled because of the ZIP code of it,” Lindberg said.

The basis of the cancellation was his wildfire risk score, which deemed his property too risky. But any specifics about that score were unavailable, and asking insurance companies to take that mitigation work into consideration was a non-starter.

People deserve to know how wildfire risk impacts their home insurance and what they can do to change it, and SB 5928 addresses this by requiring insurers to share wildfire risk scores with consumers, including a clear explanation for those scores, if those scores are used to determine eligibility or pricing.

The grant program helps mitigate that risk and build resiliency, which is where SB 6079 comes in. This program would help homeowners retrofit their homes to the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety’s (IBHS) Wildfire Prepared Home standards. This is similar to Alabama’s Strengthen Alabama Homes grant program, which has fortified more than 50,000 roofs since 2016 to better withstand hurricane-force winds.

Washington’s program would apply to existing structures, not new construction, and prioritize projects in areas with high wildfire risk, limited insurance access, and historically underserved populations; and balances scientific rigor, cost-effectiveness, and equitable access. Most importantly, homeowners who go through the program could not be canceled or nonrenewed based on their wildfire risk. The bill creates a pilot program that would initially be funded by the OIC’s regulatory accounts. It also works in tandem with the DNR’s Ready Neighbors program that engages with communities to reduce vegetation that fuels these fires — the first step to reducing ember intrusion into your home. 

With the Legislature’s help, we can keep Washington’s home insurance market strong and make resiliency upgrades financially available for the people who need them most. Wildfire mitigation starts at home, and these two bills give people the knowledge to start that work and the means to fund it. We encourage you to follow along to see their progress.