I had the honor of being asked to serve on a work group with a local Assembly person, a city mayor, several other local officials and volunteers last week. The work group was put together in an effort to come up with some solutions for: Higher home insurance costs; wild fire dangers; making homes more fire proof; and, how state and local officials can be of more assistance before and after fire emergencies. The Coast Fire in Laguna Niguel on May 11, 2022 scared a lot of people and local officials want to do more to help CA residents on many levels.
One of the members of the work group, who sat next to me, lost her home in the fire (and I feel awful for her). She was not at the top of the hill, but a street or two down. Her home burned due to embers entering her home through the vents under her eaves. The eaves are an area where an updraft can push the embers directly into the attic of your home and light the insulation on fire, burning your home, from the inside out. There are some solutions available to help reduce the potential for this here.
Her greatest concern, which is often ours, is how much insurance she had to replace her home. Unfortunately, she was a bit under-insured. (One of the issues is every insurance agent and company values homes differently. There are subjectives on home finishes, which adjust the values in calculating the replacement cost.)
A part of our conversation revolved around solutions. An item I brought up that may help reduce the cost of homeowners insurance, in a roundabout way, is to require automatic water shut off valves in all homes. Water is the number one cause of loss and if everyone had an automatic water shut off valve installed, that could help reduce water claims. With less water claims, the cost of insurance, in theory, should be reduced. It will take some time for the rates to come down and then there is the chance they may not adjust at all, but, I think it is worth a shot.
At the end of the meeting, the local representatives had some good ideas to act on. We decided to meet quarterly to continue providing advice and discuss more solutions. I'll provide updates as they happen. Stay tuned...
