Submitted by Tom Daly
National and local publications have reported on the insurance industry’s crusade against homeowners in northern Nevada, among other locations, canceling or non-renewing their clients’ homeowner’s insurance policies.
They cite the wildfire risk. Geico, AAA, Allstate, State Farm and Travelers were named.
For those living in forested areas with wood-frame houses and little defensible space, the insurance industry is justified in trying to reduce their exposure to catastrophic losses.
Such areas are defined in Washoe County’s Wildland Code as typically being in either “extreme” or “high” wildfire hazard zones. The county, with the advice of the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District professionals, developed a map of such areas, dubbed the Fire Risk Map, last updated in June 2018. Color-coded and easy to read, neighborhoods are rated as to their wildfire risk from low to moderate to high to extreme.
Editor’s note: A similar statewide map from Nevada Division of Forestry is available here.
TMFPD personnel take into consideration a series of factors, defined in the Wildland Code, to reach a hazard rating, including density and type of fuels, topography, evacuation routes, defensible space, and building construction, including roofs (combustible or non-combustible) and water supply, among others.
Even for homeowners with a moderate hazard rating, code-complying defensible space, homes of non-combustible construction – in communities with active fuels reduction projects, a TMWA water supply (hydrants) and a state and county-certified Community Wildfire Protection Plan – insurance companies are still canceling or not renewing policies.
Too bad, says the insurance company, we are canceling you anyway. A number of residents in Galena Forest, Callahan Ranch and nearby neighborhoods are reporting their policies were canceled or not renewed.
Insurance industry underwriters in faraway cities are not bound to use the County’s Fire Risk Map to make their decisions as to insurability. They have never stepped foot in Washoe County or consulted with local fire officials.
So, who knows the wildfire risk better? Local fire professionals with an intimate knowledge of our neighborhoods, or some green-eyeshade insurance gnome in Hartford, Connecticut, using Google Earth?
Where are our regulators and legislators who are supposed to be protecting us from such predatory underwriting practices based on flawed data?
Thomas Daly is a resident of the Estates at Mt. Rose, a CWPP neighborhood.
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