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Experts tell Senate committee long‑term market stability depends on risk reduction, standardized mitigation data and community hardening
Summary
Actuaries and wildfire experts told the committee that reducing structural ignition risk and creating standard, parcel‑level mitigation data are essential to making insurance affordable and available at scale.
Actuaries, fire scientists and risk‑modeling experts told the Senate Insurance Committee that stabilizing California’s homeowners insurance market requires systemic risk reduction — parcel and community mitigation, standardized data on mitigation measures, and practical strategies to retrofit existing homes.
Nancy Watkins, a principal and consulting actuary at Milliman, described a multi‑step approach that aligns mitigation measurement, community standards, and insurance pricing: measure parcel‑level mitigations and community fire‑protection capabilities, standardize and anonymize that data, feed mitigations into model inputs and rate filings, and reward mitigation with discounts and underwriting incentives. Watkins pointed the committee to the Cal Fire risk modeling advisory work group and to an effort called the WUI Data Commons, which she said is developing a shared data resource to support mitigation recognition, model inputs, and community enforcement.
Stanford researcher Michael Warra (testifying in a personal capacity) said California is experiencing an “urban conflagration” where structure‑to‑structure ignition, not only wildland spread, drives catastrophic losses. He said three characteristics define a healthy insurance market: accurate risk pricing, availability, and affordability — and that reducing risk through retrofits, defensible space and building‑code improvements is essential to maintain affordability as climate‑driven risk rises.
Nut graf: Experts urged the committee to treat mitigation and data collection as part of the insurance‑market solution: make mitigation measurable, finance retrofits for existing housing, and align building codes, defensible‑space enforcement and insurance incentives to reduce structure ignition risk.
Implementation challenges: Witnesses warned that regulations such as “Zone 0” and Chapter 7A building standards have limited near‑term reach (Watkins and Warra noted Zone 0 will not apply to many existing homes until later phases) and that retrofit programs and funding are needed to scale protections across millions of existing homes.
Ending: Experts asked the committee to support data‑collection efforts, mitigation retrofit funding, and coordinated state‑local implementation to reduce risk and restore market stability over the medium term.
