Officials in the state are looking for options to support property insurers in wildfire prone regions.
California officials are working to avoid facing a similar situation in their home insurance market to that faced by officials in Florida.
Catastrophic storms have been sending home insurance rates steadily and steeply upward in Florida. California is aiming to avoid the same situation due to the regular and devastating storms blasting their way through.
State officials in California are now working on ways to stop property insurers from leaving areas prone to wildfires. They have been examining the situation in Florida to better understand the steps that should be taken. Residents of many parts of Florida are now paying three times the national average, and that is when they can find coverage, an effort that can be highly challenging.
Californian officials have long boasted about their progressive climate change strategies. Now that property owners are losing coverage from their insurers due to wildfire risk that is only worsening due to the changing climate, the situation is definitely on lawmakers’ radar. The Democratic state is looking at what Republican rivals in Florida did and are hoping to use that as an example of an approach they should not adopt.
Officials in California are determined not to wait to take action on the home insurance issues.
“We are not going to wait to take action,” said Ricardo Lara, California Insurance Commissioner, in a recently released statement. “We will not wait for what is happening in Florida to happen in California.”
That said, as determined as lawmakers may be in California, they have yet to come up with an alternative to Florida’s strategy that will provide the state with the home insurance coverage future it is seeking. Still, other states are keeping a close eye on the moves California will make so that they can use the outcomes to determine their own strategies as they face an increase in disasters fueled by climate change. For instance, politicians in Colorado are carefully assembling a coverage plan of last resort for property owners struggling to obtain policies.
