Why California Homeowners Are Losing Their Insurance - And What to Do About It

In 2023 and 2024, State Farm, Allstate, Farmers, and a growing list of major insurers announced they would stop writing new homeowner policies - or would non-renew existing ones - in California's high fire hazard areas. The numbers are stark: over 350,000 policies were non-renewed in 2023 alone.

If you live in a wildfire-prone area of Southern California, this isn't background news. It's a crisis affecting property values, mortgage eligibility, and livability.

Why Insurers Are Leaving

It comes down to one thing: the math no longer works for them.

California's wildfire losses have increased exponentially. The Camp Fire (2018), Dixie Fire (2021), and LA-area fires represent some of the most expensive insured disasters in US history. Meanwhile, California's regulatory environment historically capped how quickly insurers could raise premiums to reflect actual risk.

The result: insurers stopped writing policies where they couldn't price the risk appropriately.

What Happens If You're Dropped

If you're non-renewed, your options narrow quickly:

1. California FAIR Plan - the insurer of last resort. It provides basic fire coverage but often at higher cost and with significant limitations.

2. Surplus lines market - non-admitted carriers that can price freely. Often expensive and variable in coverage quality.

3. Reducing your risk profile - the only durable solution.

How Mitigation Changes the Equation

Some insurers - particularly in the specialty and surplus lines market - are beginning to differentiate between properties based on documented mitigation. A property with:

...is a measurably different risk than a property with none of those things. Insurers can quantify that difference, and some are now actively pricing it.

The Executive Report Approach

Our Executive Report is specifically designed to be presented to insurance underwriters. It documents your property's risk profile, your mitigation actions, and calculates Wildfire Mitigation Modifiers that underwriters can apply to reconsider coverage or pricing.

Our reports are built to be handed directly to a carrier or underwriter as part of a coverage conversation. What the carrier does with them is the carrier's decision.

What You Should Do Now

1. Get a property risk assessment - know your actual risk score

2. Identify and address your highest-impact vulnerabilities

3. Document every improvement with photos and receipts

4. Get a professional report that presents all of this to an underwriter

5. Explore carriers who are re-entering California's market with risk-differentiated pricing

The insurance market in California is changing. Carriers who understand mitigation will eventually differentiate - and documented properties will be in a better position than undocumented ones.