By launching and advancing a "Wildfire Risk Reduction and Asset Protection" (WRAP) initiative in 2017, UP is helping property owners across California keep their assets insured during a home insurance availability and affordability crisis that is affecting many parts of the state. This crisis is hitting people hard in the pocketbook. Insurers have dropped ("non-renewed") thousands of customers in areas they deem vulnerable to wildfires, and when those customers find a replacement home insurance policy, it provides less protection and costs as much as four times what they had been paying. Not only is this huring homeowners...it's reducing property values, hurting real estate sales and causing a ripple effect of economic harm. United Policyholders is working hard with powerful partners to help solve the crisis. We are helping people shop in a very challenging marketplace. We are working to solve the crisis through our WRAP initiative.
For a deeper dive, visit: www.uphelp.org/wrap
The WRAP Initiative
The "WRAP" Initiative aims to help create mitigation standards, financial assistance, inspection and certification programs and insurance rewards that will reduce the underlying risk of wildfires and help restore a competitive home insurance market. In addition to constantly monitoring the insurance marketplace, disseminating information and free shopping tools to homeowners and stakeholders, UP is also doing advocacy work in Sacramento and throughout CA.
Partners/WRAP Working Group Participants
The California Department of Insurance
Western Fire Chiefs Association
FireWise Community Advocates
FireSafe Councils
The Institute for Home and Business Safety
CalFire
COPE (Citizens Organized to Prepare for Emergencies)
Cal Poly WUI FIRE Institute
Novato Fire District
University of California Cooperative Extension
Mariposa County
Wildfire Partners
Approach:
- Help homeowners keep their assets insured despite the affortability and availability crisis
- Identify the most commonly accepted home improvements that experts and communities are promoting to facilitate home hardening and fuel reduction steps (see below)
- Advocate with the CA Dept. of Insurance and in the CA legislature to establish an official fire risk reduced home standard, financial assistance, inspection and certification program.
- Advocate that CDI and other state insurance regulators continue to limit the use of predictive models in home insurance rates.
- Continue our work at the federal level advancing mitigation and insurance support/reward programs across the country
- Collect data through our ongoing California Home Insurance Survey
Logistics:
Project Directors – Amy Bach, Executive Director, Joel Laucher, former Deputy Commissioner, Rate Regulation Bureau, CA Department of Insurance
Project Support - Emily Rogan and Valerie Brown
Inquiries, email: emily@uphelp.org
Funders:
Sonoma County Community Investment Program
Consumer Federation of America
AT&T
Please donate to support this important project.
Thank you to all our donors who donated to supported this important project at our 2019 Build UP Fund-a-Need.
- Dropped by your insurer, where to go for help
- The lowdown from UP on the California FAIR Plan, the last resort option for insuring your home
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UP Webinar: Shopping for Insurance in a challenging marketplace
- Wildfire Risk Reduction and Insurability (UP overview)
- Climate Change and Insurance
- Commission of Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery Final Report
- Department of Insurance Whitepaper on Availability/Affordability
- Commissioner predicts shrinking insurance options for CA homeowners
- Wildfire Risk Insight: Analysis of property exposure and wildfire damage in 2019
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UP Written Comments: CA Department of Insurance Investigatory Hearing on Homeowners Insurance Availability and Affordability
Data / Survey Results
Rewards
Examples of local mitigation and certification programs
Examples of Mitigation Standards
- IBHS Wildfire Codes and Standards: A State-by-State Reference Guide (Nov 2019)
- IBHS Suburban Wildfire Adaptation Roadmaps (Aug 2020)
- Mount Veeder FSC Community Fire Protection Plan (2016)
- Oakland Fire Safe Council Defensible Space Study (2019)
-
Oakland CP&R Home Hardening for Wildfire
Legislation
- HR 5494 - Catastrophe Loss Mitigation Incentive and Tax Parity Act of 2019
- AB 2367 (CA 2020) - Letter of Support
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AB 2167 (CA 2020) UP Assembly Letter of Opposition, UP Senate Letter of Opposition
- Template AB 2167 Letter of Opposition
- Consumer Federation of California AB 2167 Letter of Opposition
- Consumer Federation of America Actuarial Opinion Concerning AB 2167
- Consumer Watchdog Letter to Senator Atkins Re: AB 2167
- Article: Watchdog group opposes bill that would hike insurance rates in fire-prone areas
- Senate Bill Analysis
- Assembly Bill Analysis
- UP Updated Letter of Opposition to the Senate Committee on Appropriations
- LA Times - Editorial: An insurance fix for fire-prone areas that only an insurance company could love
- Sacramento Bee - California state legislators use coronavirus as an excuse to hijack democratic process
- SB 292 (CA 2020) - Letter of Opposition
- Wildfire Safety and Recovery Act - SB 824
