I am writing in response to Shirley Morgan’s letter to the editor last month. Insurance companies have long had instruments to assess wildfire, flood, and storm risks. Taking away the “fire maps” does NOT take away wildfire risk.
I personally know two of my mountain friends were notified that their homeowner’s insurance would be dropped due to wildfire risk. One company based it on a google overhead map and she had to prove that her wood shingle roof had been replaced with asphalt. My other friend had insurance with a company that decided to drop ALL homeowner’s coverage in the state. They got out of the mortgage insurance business all together.
This was well over a year ago and I suspect if you ask around you will find friends who had coverage issues prior to the fire maps being released.
I am finding that homeowners who seek the cheapest possible coverage are the ones being dropped or having their policies double in price. We are all paying for the fire in Lahaina and LA and my friends in other states will be paying for that fire damage as well. Insurance rates are soaring everywhere, not just here because there’s a fire risk map out.
One of the things suggested at the Homeowners’ Workshop, hosted by the Mt. Hood Wildfire Partnership, was to contact my insurance agent. I called Bob and said I wanted a policy review. We went line by line in my policy as if my home had completely burned down in a wildfire. I didn’t need to make any changes.
I recommend that people talk to their agents about their policy specifics in advance of a catastrophic situation. I will also say that I talked about our home hardening efforts which interested Bob. I can now comfortably say that when my home burns down completely, I will not be having insurance coverage problems like many people in LA.
You get what you pay for and if you don’t have an agent to talk to because you’ve got bargain basement policy coverage off the internet, then you can expect your rates to skyrocket, no matter where the fires burn.
I would recommend that Ms. Morgan get “busy with trimming up… trees” in addition to her letter writing campaign. Home hardening is key to wildfire risk reduction.
Melinda McCrossen,Timberline Rim HOA FireWise Chair