Tag: Texas wildfires

California, Colorado and Texas Face Billion-Dollar Home Insurance Dilemma

Nordstrom
california wildfire risk landscape

California’s Growing Wildfire Risk for Home Insurance Market California homeowners face a growing problem: over 1.2 million homes are at moderate or high risk of wildfire damage, with reconstruction costs exceeding $760 billion. According to CoreLogic’s Wildfire Risk Report, this is particularly concerning for those living in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), especially in areas like Los Angeles, San Diego, and Riverside. Climate change is a significant factor, with NOAA’s data showing the number of acres burned each year has nearly doubled since the early ’80s. Reconstruction costs for damaged…

Read More

Texas wildfire victims often didn’t have home insurance coverage

H. Cutner
Home insurance - fire destruction inside home- Texas flag

Many of the structures – including homes – that were taken by the fires lacked a policy. Many of the victims of the wildfires that blazed through parts of Texas were without home insurance coverage, leaving them without any financial support to help them to recover. As a result, man of those victims might never experience full financial recovery At a recent news conference, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that many of the people who lost their homes to the wildfires “had no insurance.”  As a result, he pointed out…

Read More

Disaster declaration renewed in Texas as devastating drought persists

Texas Governor Rick Perry has renewed a declaration of disaster regarding the state’s ongoing and costly drought. Last year, the declaration was renewed several times, as the drought showed no signs of relenting. According to the National Weather Service, 2011 was the driest year Texas has ever known and the second hottest. The conditions ignited several wildfires throughout the state that caused damage to hundreds of homes and ruining thousands of acres of land. Insurers have been battling the disaster as fervently as state officials, but there seems to be…

Read More

State Farm petitions Texas insurance regulators to deem the state’s wildfires an official catastrophe

S.Vagus

Texas has been battling an outbreak of wildfires since the beginning of September. The fires have wrought carnage throughout the state, burning more than 1 million acres and more than 1,000 homes. The catastrophe has put enormous pressure on the state’s insurers who have been struggling to mitigate the damage caused by the fires. The disaster is so serious that State Farm Insurance has petitioned the Texas Department of Insurance to designate the wildfires as an official catastrophe. The petition was submitted to the Department on September 12, but regulators…

Read More

Homeowners may see less coverage following changes made by State Farm

State Farm has announced that it will be making changes to the deductibles in its homeowner insurance, and consumer advocates are concerned that this will decrease the amount that will be paid on consumers’ claims. The insurer also released a notice to insurance regulators in Texas, stating its intentions to increase homeowner insurance rates, starting in October, by an average of 9.6 percent. State farm is the largest insurer in the state. It also announced that, starting in December, it would be moving all of its current customers over to…

Read More