Wildfire Risk Information Reporting
(A Fire and Wildfire Exposure Risk Manual - Updated June 23, 2023)
Introduction
Californians should have fair and equitable access to available and affordable homeowners’ insurance.
California Insurance Code section 929 requires the California Department of Insurance to collect data from admitted insurers with $10 million or more of California written premium to help address availability and affordability issues in the homeowners’ insurance market as a result of wildfires. Pursuant to Insurance Code section 929.2, the Department is updating the dataset to include aggregate wildfire loss data from 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This statute was enacted as part of a bill, Senate Bill 824 (Chapter 616, Statutes of 2018), authored by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara when he was serving as a state Senator, and signed by then-Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in 2018. Part of SB 824 amended California Insurance Code section 929 to address the lack of historical loss data for homeowners’ insurance, especially in high to very high wildfire risk areas.
Section 929 requires all admitted insurers to submit a biennial report to the Insurance Commissioner with its residential property experience data for the previous two years. The reporting threshold will increase by 20% every 5 years.
Insurers are required to include the following information by individual policy in their reports:
- Fire- or wildfire-incurred losses, if any, reported by property coverage category and the date of the loss.
- The public protection class or its equivalent, if utilized by the insurer.
- The specific numerical or other fire risk score and source of fire risk score, if applicable.
- Premium.
- ZIP Code.
The California Department of Insurance reserves the right to limit its use by insurers to support future rate change requests until additional data is made available. This data may not be used by an insurer in a rate change request if the California Department of Insurance determines that it will cause the requested rates to be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory under Proposition 103.
Number of Insurers who Submitted Data
A total of 82 individual admitted companies plus the FAIR Plan submitted data in 2022 for experience years 2020 and/or 2021. For experience years 2018 and/or 2019, 76 insurers provided relevant data in 2020. The total premiums earned by these admitted insurers for all experience years, excluding the FAIR Plan, represent approximately 99% of the NAIC Line 04 (Homeowners) insurance market.
Number of Insurers who Reported a Fire Risk Classification and/or PPC
From the total of 82 insurers in 2022, 52 companies provided a fire risk classification, which represented about 67% of the Homeowners insurance market. In addition, 69 companies provided a PPC code, and those insurers represented about 68% of the Homeowners insurance market. In 2020, the fire risk classification and PPC code were reported together. Of these 76 insurers, 43 insurers provided both PPC and fire risk classification. The earned premiums from this subset of insurers represents about 49% of the Homeowners insurance market.
SB 824 Wildfire Risk Information
- Format of the Report and Methodology
- 2020 and 2021 Wildfire Risk Information Report Data
- 2018 and 2019 Wildfire Risk Information Report Data
Acknowledgements
This report and all the accompanying exhibits were prepared under the direction of Luciano Gobbo, Chief in the California Department of Insurance’s Data Analytics and Reporting Division. All the data analysis and computations were done by Micah Mumper, Ph.D., Research Program Specialist II, a member of the Data Analytics and Reporting Division. He received assistance from Adam Gammell, Division Chief, Lynne Wehmueller, Chief Actuary, and Edward Cimini, Senior Casualty Actuary, all members of the Rate Regulation Branch.
Contact for Further Information
For questions regarding the report, or the methodology used in the collection of the data, please contact Luciano Gobbo at Luciano.Gobbo@insurance.ca.gov.
