WA insurance commissioner pushes bills for wildfire mitigation, disclose wildfire risk scores

Jan. 25—OLYMPIA — Washington state Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer heard similar stories from homeowners as she traveled the state.

"When I went around the state talking to folks, this was an issue that I heard about from people who had an insurer for, sometimes decades, and would all of a sudden out of the blue receive a nonrenewal notice," Kuderer said in an interview Monday.

According to her office, policy renewals have doubled since 2021.

Marvin Lindberg, who attended a September town hall hosted by Kuderer in Spokane, was among those who were told their home was uninsurable. During the event, Lindberg said he and his neighbor had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to reduce the risk of fire on their property on the west side of Tower Mountain.

The work included thinning trees and installing a 7,000-gallon tank in his yard, while his neighbor installed compatible hookups on their 80,000-gallon swimming pool.

"All of a sudden, I get a love note in the mail saying my homeowners insurance is canceled because of the ZIP code of it," Lindberg said.

Lindberg said he was dropped because a wildfire risk score determined his property was too risky. The scores rate a property's likelihood of experiencing damage from wildfires and factor in vegetation, topography and climate change trends. But they're not always public.

"It seemed to me that it would be prudent for insurance companies to give that information to their insurers ahead of time so that they can start taking action to improve their insurability," Kuderer said Jan. 19.

This session, Kuderer is pushing lawmakers to require insurance companies to disclose a wildfire risk score if it's used, explain how the score was calculated and what can be done to improve it. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, and Rep. Zach Hall, D-Issaquah, in the Senate, cleared the Senate Business Committee last week.

"These are bipartisan bills in both chambers," Kuderer said. "And the idea is to give insureds important information. Because you can't prepare for something you don't know you're at risk for."

The idea comes as wildfires have increased in both severity and frequency in recent years in Washington and throughout the West Coast. Brian Harvey, assistant professor of environmental and forest sciences at the University of Washington, said in a blog post last year that between the early 1980s and 1999, there was only one year where more than 6 million acres burned in the country.

"Since the year 2000, there have now been 13 such years," he said.

Given the increased severity of wildfires, Kuderer said many homeowners have looked to harden their homes to risk, though cost often stands as a barrier.

Kuderer is also pushing the state to establish a voluntary grant program to retrofit existing homes to reduce the risk of wildfire damage. The idea, Kuderer said, is modeled after similar programs in other states at risk for natural disasters.

The pilot program would be funded through the insurance commissioner's regulatory account and would not take money from the general fund.

If passed, Kuderer is optimistic the program could be set up by the start of the next wildfire season. The grant program would help fund projects like installing siding that's fire-resistant and installing double-pane windows.

"Things like that, we think we can improve insurability for the average consumer," Kuderer said. "The goal here is to maintain a healthy insurance market, so a strong insurance market that's competitive, and then to maintain the insurability of homes that right now are at risk."

The legislation is sponsored by Rep. Alex Ramel, D-Bellingham, in the House, and Sen. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, in the Senate. The bill was heard in the Senate Business Committee on Thursday.

"The Insurance Commissioner came out to Spokane in the interim and had a community forum, and hearing from a homeowner who had put several hundred thousand dollars into trying to harden their wildfire mitigation, and still getting no opportunity to maintain insurance," Riccelli said during his testimony.

Terri Cooper, the mayor of Medical Lake, is among those who testified in support of the idea during the hearing on Thursday. Cooper referenced the Gray Fire in 2023, which destroyed 240 homes.

"I'm in support of this because it helps incentivize communities to create defensible space, harden up and be prepared," Cooper said. "But mostly what happened with us is right after the wildfire, premier insurance companies canceled insurance for entire ZIP codes carte blanche, just gone. Can't get insured, and others followed."

Both bills are among the five suggestions made by a wildfire mitigation work group established during the 2025 legislative session, which Kuderer took part in. The group included both Kuderer and Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove, landowners, PUD representatives, and representatives of the insurance industry.

In a December report to the Legislature, the work group wrote that members "expressed strong consensus" on the need for a voluntary program to help homeowners reduce the risk of wildfires at their homes.

"Members agreed that measurable, science-based wildfire mitigation practices supported by public investment would be critical to reducing wildfire-related insurance nonrenewal and cancellations in Washington's residential market," the report states.

Members of the group also agreed on the need for increased transparency in the insurance market, and generally agreed that "policymakers and consumers need better, more consistent information on how wildfire risk influences insurance availability, affordability, and nonrenewal."

They differed, however, on the solution.

"Non industry participants favored disclosure to improve transparency and empower property owners to understand and mitigate their risk. Industry participants raised concerns about inconsistency among scoring models, lack of consumer comprehension, and the potential for disclosure to increase confusion or costs," the report states.

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