CA Fair Plan: wildfire territory ranges from True 0 to 30 William C Blake Blake asked 7 months ago
CA Fair Plan: wildfire territory ranges from True 0 to 30

I cannot understand the following text from CA Fair Plan that was included in our May renewal documents:

“Your wildfire territory is based on an assessment of overall wildfire risk that assigns a score to each address. (Understood.)

Your wildfire territory ranges from True 0 to 30 and is associated with factors that range from 0.000 (wildfire territory True 0) to 1.942 (wildfire territory 30). (What does this mean? I cannot find a definition of “wildfire territory True 0” on the internet, nor it is clear how “factors” ranging from 0.000 to 1.942 collorate with a rating from True 0 to 30.)

Your assigned wildfire territory classification is 6.”

(Again, nowhere can I find a ranking of “wildfire territory classifications” with numercial values: only CalFire’s Fire Hazard Severity Zones, which are “Moderate,” “High,” or “Very High”. Per CalFire’s map, we’re in a High zone.)

Finally, our Z-Fire assessment by Zesty.ai for Level 2 (“individual property characteristics ascertained by satellite imagery”), on a range from 1 to 10, has a Score Value of 0 (zero, sic). Say what?

1 Answers
Joel Laucher Joel Laucher Expert answered 6 months ago
0 Vote Up Vote Down

Dear William,

The insurer is using a wildfire score from a data company called Verisk and the tool itself is called Fireline. The Fireline tool uses an equation of “slope times fuel plus access” to determine a score. Each component has a 1-5 range. So if you were on a steep slope that is heavily wooded and up a single narrow road your score would be 5×5+5 = 30 (the highest score). If your score is a 30 the factor applied to your fire rate would be 1.942 which is essentially double the rate for a home with no wildfire risk.
As to the Z-fire score, I believe they mean that your home has no wildfire risk, presuming a score of 1 is some risk but minimal. It is possible the insurer is only using this tool for underwriting/eligibility since there is no reference to a corresponding rating factor.
I hope this helps.