Insurance industry lays out wildfire risk, urges science‑based mitigation as county begins public sessions

Coconino County convened a public session Sept. 9 on the wildfire insurance crisis that featured a presentation from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) explaining why insurers are tightening underwriting in high‑wildfire‑risk areas and urging a suite of science‑based mitigation actions at property and community scales.

Lucinda Andriani, Flood Control District administrator, opened the session by noting the county’s high wildfire exposure and explaining the series of public meetings the county will host to inform policy and mitigation steps. She told the board the county is posting session recordings and materials online and scheduled further sessions focused on home hardening and mitigation research.

Industry view: losses, modeling, mitigation Ethan Auman, APCIA senior director for environmental issues and resiliency, said national insured catastrophe losses have roughly doubled in the last decade and that a combination of economic inflation, more costly property stock in hazardous locations and more severe weather is driving insurance price and availability trends. "When losses go up, rates also have to go up for insurers to be able to pay their claims," Auman said.

Auman described how wildfire catastrophe models, which insurers use to assess financial exposure, combine terrain, fuels, weather, built form and community readiness. He cautioned that models are complex and that insurers increasingly rely on parcel‑level risk scores and mitigation verification to underwrite policies. "Wildfire behavior isn't driven by a single factor," he said. "It's the product of dozens of interacting variables."

Auman stressed mitigation as the chief lever to reduce risk and stabilize markets. He described the Institute for Business & Home Safety’s (IBHS) wildfire prepared home framework — measures that target ember resistance and home‑perimeter defensible space — and said the industry supports incentives and programs that reward verified mitigation: "One of the most important elements is establishing a five‑foot noncombustible zone in the space immediately around the home," he said. Auman also cited IBHS neighborhood designations and examples where communities that adopt stronger standards have seen insurers reenter markets.

Local context and next steps County leaders emphasized the dual workstreams required: landscape‑scale fuels treatment with federal partners and neighborhood‑scale home hardening, education and funding for retrofit work. Andriani said the next county session will focus on home hardening and is scheduled for Sept. 30 and that the session will include a presentation from IBHS research staff. The flood control district is hosting recordings and slide decks on its wildfire page.

Board and public questions Supervisors pressed APCIA and staff on mitigation incentive design, how to handle holdouts in neighborhood programs and where federal, state and local funding can close gaps to help lower‑income residents retrofit homes. Questions included how to scale mitigation grants, how mortgage lenders might help finance home retrofits, and whether new state rules could unintentionally drive insurers from local markets by increasing coverage obligations without addressing the underlying risk.

Ending County staff said this series of sessions will inform legislative outreach and potential county actions, and urged residents to sign up for meeting updates. "Addressing the wildfire challenge requires a collaborative effort," Auman said, "insurers, policymakers, communities and individual homeowners all working together to build resilience."