WRAP: Wildfire Risk Reduction and Asset Protection Initiative

Through a combination of advocacy, research and education activities in wildfire-prone states, United Policyholders (“UP”) is a leader in efforts to reduce individual and community level wildfire risk and put insurance rules in place to incentivize and reward those reductions.

When home and business owners in California and Colorado began losing their insurance in 2017 and prices began increasing dramatically, UP launched a Wildfire Risk Reduction and Asset Protection (“WRAP”) initiative. Our first goal was to help establish concensus standards for effective wildfire risk reduction. We accomplished that goal for California in October 2021 when we issued a proposed set of risk reduction standards and shared them with the California Department of Insurance and the Insurance Institute for Home and Business Safety (IBHS). Both CDI and IBHS subsequently issued largely identical standards. We are continuing to contribute to related progress in Colorado, Oregon and Washington as well.

The WRAP group’s next accomplishment was supporting the California Department of Insurance in adopting regulations that require insurers to adjust their rates to reward risk reduced properties and communities.  Those regulations were filed with the CA Office of Administrative Law and are now approved.  Insurance companies that sell home insurance in California filed updated rating plans to comply with the new regulations.  These plans are in the process of being reviewed and revised or approved by the department within set time parameters.  The first set of approved mitigation discounts are those filed by the California Fair Plan.  To learn more about those discounts and how consumers can qualify for them, see our October, 2023 Home Insurance Briefing webinar recortding and slide deck.

Through our WRAP initiative, we are monitoring pricing and availability in the marketplace in both states by conducting surveys. We are working closely with state insurance regulators and legislators to advance monitoring and remedial efforts, and we have built a network of agent and broker volunteers who serve as additional eyes and ears on which insurers are open for business and where. UP staff is hosting and participating in many consumer-facing education and shopping help events, in-person and online througout the year. Our WRAP Resource Center makes it easy for CA visitors to click on their county and find guidance and mitigation help programs in their area.

One of the most impactful activities under our WRAP initiative is our WRAP working group that consists of public officials, firefighting professionals, community volunteers, scientists, realtors and a range of highly active stakeholders. The group meets monthly to hear from invited experts and discuss progress and problems in the regions of California that are innovating to increase home hardening and defensible space, passing bond measures, hosting grant and technical support programs and putting building codes and other measures in place to decrease risk and increase insurability.  We are connecting people in diverse communities with each other and with strategies and program models that are working!  UP has hosted over 55 well attended WRAP Working Group meetings to date and after every meeting, attendees send us heartfelt thank yous.

WRAP Working Group meeting speakers have included:

• California’s State Fire Marshall
• Fire Chiefs from counties across CA
• Deputy Commissioners, CA Department of Insurance
• IBHS representatives 
• Firewise USA®
• Fire Safe Councils
• Milliman
• CSAA, Mercury Insurance
• Independent Insurance Agents
• Mitigation professionals, inspectors, Product Vendors (Metal gates, Vent Screens)

United Policyholders is helping restore affordable, available property insurance options for home and business owners in wildfire-prone regions. Our focus is on helping people and communities invest in wildfire risk reduction to prevent damage and destruction and be able to keep their properties insured at reasonable rates.  Our work includes helping property owners access expertise and financial resources for hardening homes and creating defensible space and advancing policies that will reward risk reduction and bring insurers back into zip codes where they’re no longer offering new or renewal policies. Our WRAP initiative has been focused on California, but we’re doing related work in Colorado and Oregon as well.

Data on property vulnerabilities and increased wildfire risk due to drought and extreme heat associated with climate change is causing insurance companies to dramatically reduce property insurance sales in Wildland Urban Interface areas, suburban and even urban regions throughout Western states.  Insurers are dropping long time customers, declining new business and increasing premiums.  This is making it very hard for home and business owners to keep their assets affordably or fully insured and comply with lender requirements.Reducing wildfire risk is critical to fixing this situation.  Improving conditions so structures and communities are less likely to be damaged or destroyed in future wildfires will help restore insurer confidence and engagement and save homes!

UP is committed to helping establish incentives and rewards for those who invest time and money into risk reduction. Giving property owners a financial incentive (cheaper, more accessible insurance) to spend money and time on property improvements will increase parcel and community level mitigation, should restore insurer confidence and competition, and lead to appropriate discounts for reduced risk.

Now that standards and a set of regulations are in place in California, and Colorado has adopted a statewide WUI Building Code, our next goals are:

• Continuing to educate and support property owners on reducing risk and shopping for insurance.
• Monitoring insurance company compliance with the new regulations.
• Helping build out programs to provide financial and hands-on help with limbing trees, clearing brush, screening vents, boxing eaves, removing hazardous conditions and replacing class B roofs with class A roofs. 
• Ongoing communication with insurance company representatives aimed at increasing renewals and new policy sales.

Thanks to United Policyholders’ staff, volunteers and partner network, grants from the California Office of Emergency Services, and the Argosy Foundation in Colorado, we are well on our way toward meeting those goals!

The following list identifies effective means for protecting a dwelling from wildfire loss.  The list is not an exhaustive catalogue but is a focused compilation, created through United Policyholders “WRAP” initiative, of the key recommendations from an array of experts in residential wildfire risk reduction.

United Policyholders is encouraging all insurers to expand eligibility for coverage and to offer discounts in recognition of the reduced risk presented by homes that have incorporated these mitigation measures.