As I understand it, California was in violation of numerous wild- fire risk preventative requirements for affordable insurance coverage. I’m not a fan of big insurance but this is all on the CA state government, not State Farm insurance.
After the Santa Rosa fires, I attended a talk where representatives from AIG's fire division (they had their own firefighting unit at the time) and CalFire reps were presenting on best practices for fire prevention. This must have been 2018-2019. One thing I learned was a healthy forest has 80-90 trees per acre. California averages 300 trees per acre and at the time was estimated to have a million dead trees. The fuel load is INSANE. Still is and yet, little is done.
I am not giving a pass to insurance carriers here. BUT - it is not a bottomless pool of money. The government plays a huge role in this - they set the terms, they approve the products, the permits to build and they manage the land - or are supposed to theoretically. Personally. I think they like having insurance to be the convenient boogeyman for their failures - intentional and unintentional - because it is an excuse to cry for more tax money- why? You aren't using it properly now, why should you be given more? (I know, I know)
Most insurance companies have already left California. That goes for health insurance AND casualty insurance. Between unrealistic demands on California business and state's disregard for its role in fire prevention, I believe State Farm is the only private insurance company left that will even consider offering fire insurance. I lived in Calabasas for 12 years and went through several insurance companies as one by one they left the state until only insurance could be got from the state through one of their crappy little insurance scam groups. Pretty sure those companies were strictly to satisfy some policy they boxed themselves into and would never result in an actual realized benefit in case of fire.
As I understand it, California was in violation of numerous wild- fire risk preventative requirements for affordable insurance coverage. I’m not a fan of big insurance but this is all on the CA state government, not State Farm insurance.
After the Santa Rosa fires, I attended a talk where representatives from AIG's fire division (they had their own firefighting unit at the time) and CalFire reps were presenting on best practices for fire prevention. This must have been 2018-2019. One thing I learned was a healthy forest has 80-90 trees per acre. California averages 300 trees per acre and at the time was estimated to have a million dead trees. The fuel load is INSANE. Still is and yet, little is done.
I am not giving a pass to insurance carriers here. BUT - it is not a bottomless pool of money. The government plays a huge role in this - they set the terms, they approve the products, the permits to build and they manage the land - or are supposed to theoretically. Personally. I think they like having insurance to be the convenient boogeyman for their failures - intentional and unintentional - because it is an excuse to cry for more tax money- why? You aren't using it properly now, why should you be given more? (I know, I know)
If I remember rightly Trump in first term told Gavin "rake the forest floors.
Most insurance companies have already left California. That goes for health insurance AND casualty insurance. Between unrealistic demands on California business and state's disregard for its role in fire prevention, I believe State Farm is the only private insurance company left that will even consider offering fire insurance. I lived in Calabasas for 12 years and went through several insurance companies as one by one they left the state until only insurance could be got from the state through one of their crappy little insurance scam groups. Pretty sure those companies were strictly to satisfy some policy they boxed themselves into and would never result in an actual realized benefit in case of fire.