California bill would require insurance protections for fire-hardened homes ...Middle East

A new state Senate bill aims to guarantee homeowners insurance protections for their wildfire-hardened homes.

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, who has worked to bring more transparency to the insurance claims process for survivors of last year’s wildfires, has proposed Senate Bill 1076. Known as the Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act, it would require insurance companies to offer or renew insurance for properties that meet wildfire safety standards set by State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.

The safety standards include home-hardening upgrades — like sprinklers and closing off the eaves under a roof to prevent the collection of burning embers — and defensible space requirements designed to reduce fire risk by creating a “zone zero” that removes plants, wood fences and other combustible material from within five feet of a home.

The bill follows concerns raised by wildfire survivors who fear they could lose coverage after rebuilding their homes, even when reconstruction meets the highest fire-resilience standards, according to a Feb. 18 statement from Perez.

If enacted, the legislation would authorize Lara to bar noncompliant insurers from participating in both the home and auto insurance markets for five years.

In the year before the Los Angeles area conflagration, California’s property insurance crisis deepened with a series of catastrophic wildfires, and insurance companies responded by closing the door to new policies and canceling existing ones. The state’s largest insurers cited fire risk with smaller carriers also leaving the state, and the state’s insurer of last resort, the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, picking up a flood of new policies in their wake.

The FAIR Plan has written 670,500 homeowner policies as of Dec. 31, 2025, up nearly 220% since September 2022, while its total exposure has jumped to $724.6 billion, a nearly 230% increase over the same period.

“To help fire survivors return home, we need assurance that newly built, wildfire resilient homes will receive insurance coverage,” Pérez said. “Homeowners who meet or exceed safety standards should not be met with coverage denials.”

The Pérez legislation is co-sponsored by the Eaton Fire Survivors Network and Consumer Watchdog.

“Survivors are rebuilding stronger and safer. But if our community cannot access insurance even after making our homes fire-safe, our housing market will crater,” said Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.

Carmen Balber, executive director of Los Angeles-based nonprofit advocacy organization Consumer Watchdog, said wildfire mitigation efforts can significantly reduce risk but are often overlooked in underwriting decisions.

“Wildfire safety measures can reduce communities’ fire risk by half, yet too often these steps are ignored when insurance companies decide who to cover,” Balber said. “Homeowners deserve to know that when they invest in wildfire protection and make their home safer from wildfires, they will be able to insure it.”

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