State collaborates with insurance industry to help Oregon homeowners with wildfire prevention

Oregon's State Fire Marshal is collaborating with a nonprofit backed by the insurance industry to help Oregonians protect their homes from burning and keep their premiums from rising.

State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple signed a memorandum of agreement Friday with Roy Wright, CEO of the South Carolina-based Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, which oversees the "Wildfire Prepared" certification program.

The program offers homeowners in California, and now Oregon, certificates for undertaking specific wildfire prevention work around their homes.

In turn, insurers could incorporate certification into their calculus for rates and premiums, helping to curb the rising cost of property insurance, which has grown 30% since 2020, according to the state's Department of Consumer and Business Services. For Gov. Tina Kotek, the memorandum is about making sure Oregonians can keep getting property insurance, period.

"What I think is important for us is that we continue to have insurance for our homeowners here, despite the wildfire risk. That's not true in other states," she said at a news conference Monday. "We also want the price to come down, but at a minimum we need to have insurance for our homeowners."

California Department of Insurance requires insurance companies operating in the state to offer discounts for wildfire mitigation work. The Oregon Legislature hasn't passed similar requirements, but Kotek said that's not necessary yet.

"We still have an insurance market. California is really struggling to maintain insurance coverage. That's not our issue right now," she said. "I think by working with the insurance industry and (implementing) best practices for communities, we're going to have a different relationship than they have in California."

Besides offering certificates for wildfire prevention work, the state and the association will partner on research, educational opportunities for Oregonians around home hardening and defensible space and offering post-wildfire analysis.

Getting certified

The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, an independent nonprofit backed by major insurers including State Farm and Farmers Insurance, offers two different Wildfire Prepared certificates: one for older homes being retrofitted to withstand fire and one for newer homes being built to withstand fires.

The certificates apply only to single-family homes three stories or less, and the person who applies for the certification has to own the home. Townhomes, condos, multiplexes and apartment buildings are not eligible, and the process can't be started by a renter.

The main requirement homeowners must meet is clearing a 5-foot buffer around the home and any deck, leaving no combustible material. That means no trees, overhanging branches, mulch, grass, turf, wood or vinyl fencing can be within 5 feet of a home or deck.

After work is completed, homeowners submit $125 along with an application that includes photos of their work. Inspectors at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety review the photos and, if approved, a third party inspector follows up to visit and confirm the work has been done, or document what more should be done.

Homeowners who are certified must submit photos annually showing they are maintaining their defensible space buffer and they must get recertified every three years.

Oregon's Insurance Commissioner Andrew Stolfi said the certification should eventually help Oregonians keep and afford insurance.

"When consumers and the state invest in reducing wildfire risk, insurers — guided by data and science — should reflect that progress in rating and underwriting, helping to keep coverage available and affordable for Oregonians," he said.

Investment or incentives from the Legislature that might help Oregonians with the costs of home hardening, however, has lagged. In 2021, following the catastrophic 2020 Labor Day Fires, the Legislature allocated more than $30 million to help Oregonians with home hardening. By 2023, the Legislature allocated about 10% of that.

A 2024 grant program from the State Fire Marshal's Office that provided $250 grants to help Oregonians afford defensible space landscaping is no longer available, according to Kassie Keller, an agency spokesperson.

Kotek said helping Oregonians afford to prevent wildfires from burning up their homes is still a priority for her.

"The session's not over yet," she said. "I'm going to continue to fight for dedicated dollars, and frankly new dollars, to help have more of these community-based grants to help not only individual homeowners harden and be protected from wildfire, but the whole community."