Homeowners: What’s Your Wildfire Scarlet Letter Score?

Remember Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter? Insurance companies are “branding” homeowners with a WILDFIRE RISK SCORE. Yup! Based on your defensible space around your home (100 feet), community wildfire-mitigation efforts (Micro Communities!), construction and roofing materials, access (one-lane or dead-end roads), slope, and vegetation, insurance companies score your home to determine if they will offer renewal policies and at what rate they will charge.

There are several types of wildfire risk scoring systems that insurance companies use. The Verisk Analytics uses FireLine and ranks homes from zero (lowest) to 30 (highest). Houses that score a 1 are not at risk (73%), but a score of 2 or 3 is considered moderate risk (12%), and anything from 4 to 30 (15%) is considered high to extremely high risk. Insurers might not cover homes with a score as low as a 6 and most likely won’t cover homes over a 10 – and that’s out of 30 points! Aegis Insurance in Truckee won’t cover anything with a Fireline score over a 2; Mercury Insurance won’t cover anything with a FireLine score higher than 12.

While your insurance company may not renew your house in the future, homeowners can always get coverage from the Fair Plan or Lloyds of London. These premiums will probably be 2 to 3 times higher than your current coverage.

Winter is the time to create 100 feet of defensible space around your house, organize your Micro Communities, and get your neighbors to do the same. Insurance companies know that even if your house is the model for fire preparedness, your neighbors have to do the same in order for your fire preparedness to be effective. You don’t want to be branded with a Scarlet Number that will determine the fate of your insurance coverage and the value of your home.

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