(KERO) — Earlier this year the California Department of Insurance proposed new regulations to improve wildfire safety and drive down the cost of insurance for homeowners and businesses.
Micahel Soller from the Department of Insurance says many people aren’t aware that insurance companies use what are known as risk scores. It's a rating of wildfire risks for your home or property.
The CoreLogic® Wildfire Risk Score is a deterministic wildfire model which is as comprehensive as it is granular. It covers 15 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. It evaluates the risk of a property to wildfire by returning an easy-to-understand, normalized 5 to 100 score, giving insight into the potential risk of a wildfire. It does so by not only combining the risk rating but also factoring in proximity to higher-risk areas that could affect the property via windblown embers. In addition, it considers slope, aspect, vegetation/fuel, and surface composition. These factors are all weighted differently and combined to form the score.
Some elements that contribute to the score are the defensible space around your house, the installation of dual pane windows, or even the distance your property is from a fire station.
“It’s so critical that people have transparency about what that risk score is and how it is determined. One major part of these regulations is to require that the consumers receive that risk score.”
Soller adds if homeowners have taken the time and money to do wildfire safety work their risk scores need to reflect that. He says that is what the new regulations will also change.
Wildfire Risk Score HAZARD ... by Anthony Wright