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Fire chief warns of insurance cancellations; board hears informational update on mapping and statewide concern
Summary
Chief Matt Peterson and staff briefed the board on homeowner insurance cancellations and rate increases tied to perceived wildfire risk, discussed mapping tools and urged better, property-level risk assessments to prevent blanket cancellations.
Elko County Fire leadership gave an informational update on insurance issues, warning that some homeowners face cancellations or sharp premium increases tied to wildfire risk assessments and that the county is trying to assemble data and mapping to address the problem.
Delma (staff) said the district has heard locally that some insurers are raising rates or canceling policies and that it is unclear how widespread the phenomenon is. Chief Matt Peterson gave examples and urged a statewide discussion. "We had one policy here in Elko County that went from about $3,000 a year to over $12,000 a year," he said.
Peterson and staff described mapping tools maintained by the Nevada Division of Forestry (NDF) that can assess risk at near-property level. Peterson noted a challenge: some external maps and assessments (he cited FEMA-style layers) operate at broad scales that can mark an entire county as high risk, which can prompt insurers to act without assessing individual property characteristics. "One of the goals is trying to push the insurance companies in a direction where they're referencing and looking at those individual property maps so that it's not the global scale they're going on, it's the individual property or community that's being evaluated," Peterson said.
The item was listed as informational and the board took no formal action. Staff said they will continue compiling local map data and engaging state partners to make detailed property-level risk information accessible to insurers and homeowners so decisions about coverage or mitigation can be more targeted.
