Can this home be insured against fire?

Can this house be insured against fire? In California a broker first searches the ordinary market; when no insurer there will write the policy, the owner can buy basic fire cover from the California FAIR Plan, which calls itself an insurer of last resort.² Insurers decide where to write and renew policies, and what to charge, with wildfire risk models.¹² One such model, as its maker described it to California legislators, simulates weather, fuel, ignitions and the spread of fire, then scores the house and its neighbourhood.¹⁰ This page is about the United States, and mostly about California.

Who asks, and who they ask today

Owners whose policy was not renewed ask it, and so do people buying a house in fire country. They ask an insurance agent or broker, look up the state hazard map, and ask the local fire department or a neighbourhood Firewise committee. A broker is expected to search the ordinary market first and turn to the FAIR Plan only when nothing else is available.²

What answers it

The retreat, in numbers. The California Department of Insurance counts new and renewed policies from the insurers that write about 98% of the state's homeowners market.³ FAIR Plan policies rose from 141,391 in 2015 to 324,954 in 2023, when they made up 3.7% of the residential market.³ After the large fires of 2018 and 2019 the FAIR Plan's share grew fastest in counties with more homes at high wildfire risk.³ Most non-renewals are started by the policyholder, for instance on selling a house. The Department puts the share started by insurers at 20 to 25%, for reasons that include wildfire risk that no longer meets their guidelines.³ Non-renewals and cancellations, measured against policies written, rose noticeably in 2019 in the high-risk counties. They climbed again in 2023 as some larger insurers began to reduce their presence in California.³ A FAIR Plan policy covers basic fire, and a separate Difference in Conditions policy adds the rest of what a homeowners policy covers.² From 2020 to 2023 the Department counted about 115,000 fewer of those than FAIR Plan policies, and concluded that many FAIR Plan holders have none.³ In the first quarter of 2026 the FAIR Plan added about 16,000 residential policies, against 35,000 to 50,000 a quarter from 2024 to September 2025.⁴

Why the old rules mattered. Under Proposition 103, passed in 1988, insurers may propose rates at the level they need but, unlike utilities, are not required to cover every resident.⁶ For thirty years California required insurance rates to carry a catastrophe factor based on past wildfire losses. The Department says this led to rate spikes after large fires, without counting growing risk or the mitigation communities had done.⁶

The state hazard map. The State Fire Marshal must sort land in State Responsibility Areas into Fire Hazard Severity Zones, graded moderate, high or very high.¹¹ The grade draws on fire history, vegetation now and to come, predicted flame length, blowing embers, terrain and typical fire weather.¹¹ CAL FIRE says the maps describe hazard, not risk: the likely fire behaviour over 30 to 50 years, without counting home hardening, recent fires or fuel reduction.¹¹ The maps for State Responsibility Areas took effect on 1 April 2024. Maps for local areas went to local jurisdictions in four phases in February and March 2025.¹¹ An address viewer shows the zone for a property.¹¹ The Department of Insurance says these maps are not used for insurance rates or underwriting, and that their purpose is local planning.¹²

The national map. Wildfire Risk to Communities was built by the USDA Forest Service under the direction of Congress, first launched in 2020 and completely updated in May 2024.²³ Its wildfire likelihood comes from fire behaviour modelling across thousands of simulated fire seasons. Each varies the weather, topography and ignitions on patterns seen in recent decades, and the result is not a forecast.²⁴ Homes count as exposed directly, by nearby wildland vegetation, or indirectly, by embers and home-to-home ignition.²⁴ The methods come from the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory of the Rocky Mountain Research Station and from Pyrologix.²⁶ Its FAQ warns that the data is not locally calibrated or fine scale and is not meant for a single home. It is not designed for insurers either, many of whom make their own assessments at the scale they need.²⁵ The national likelihood dataset it cites is published at 270 metres.²⁵

The house and the five feet around it. NFPA says research on which homes burn and which survive points to embers and small flames as the main way most homes ignite. Embers can be carried more than a mile.¹³ The home ignition zone is an idea from the Forest Service fire scientist Jack Cohen in the late 1990s.¹³ It covers the house and everything up to 200 feet from it, in three parts:¹³

• 0 to 5 feet, kept noncombustible
• 5 to 30 feet
• 30 to 100 feet, out to 200

IBHS says laboratory tests and post-fire investigations show that clearing all combustible material from the first five feet is the most effective defensible space action an owner can take.¹⁴ It also finds that no single hardening measure protects a building, and sets out ember protection first, with a second layer against flames.¹⁵ Houses can also set each other alight. In the 2013 Black Bear Cub Fire in Tennessee a single cabin fire spread through a resort and destroyed 53 cabins despite low wildfire danger, and IBHS named building-to-building ignition among the causes.¹⁶

Discounts for mitigation. California's Safer from Wildfires regulation covers the structure, its immediate surroundings and the community, in ten actions:¹

• a Class A roof
• a five-foot ember-resistant zone, with wood fencing attached to the house replaced by metal
• 1/16 to 1/8 inch metal mesh over vents
• six inches of noncombustible material at the base of exterior walls
• enclosed eaves
• multi-paned windows or shutters
• cleared ground under decks
• sheds and other outbuildings removed to at least 30 feet
• compliance with defensible space law
• membership of a Firewise USA site or a Fire Risk Reduction Community

Each action qualifies for an insurance discount.¹ The Department calls the 2022 regulation the nation's first mandatory wildfire insurance safety discounts.⁸

Wildfire Prepared Home. The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) runs a voluntary designation for houses in fourteen states, including California.¹⁷ The owner does the work from a checklist, pays a $125 application fee and sends photos, and a third-party evaluator checks the work.^17,19 The Essential level guards against embers, and most existing homes can reach it by retrofit.¹⁸ The Enhanced level adds protection from flames and radiant heat and defensible space within 30 feet, and is commonly done during new building or major renovation.¹⁸ A noncombustible first five feet is required at both.¹⁹ A designation lasts three years, with photo reviews after the first and second years.¹⁹ Insurance discounts are not guaranteed and vary by insurer and state. IBHS member insurers can look up whether an address is designated.¹⁹

Firewise USA. NFPA administers Firewise USA, co-sponsored by the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters.²⁰ A site has from 8 to 2,500 dwelling units, a volunteer committee, a community risk assessment renewed at least every five years and a three-year action plan.²¹ It puts in at least one volunteer hour per dwelling unit each year and renews its status every year.²¹ NFPA says California's Safer from Wildfires regulations require insurers to give discounts to property owners in recognised Firewise communities.²² Recognition covers the community, not individual homes, and NFPA does not inspect addresses.²² NFPA sends site boundaries to the data providers that serve insurers twice a year, in March and October. It can take up to six months before an insurer sees a newly recognised site.²²

Models in the rates. California's Sustainable Insurance Strategy aims to make insurers write more policies in wildfire-distressed areas and to reverse the growth of the FAIR Plan.⁵ A regulation enforced on 13 December 2024 lets insurers use wildfire catastrophe models in their rates if they write more in those areas.^6,7 Large insurers must reach comprehensive policies in wildfire-distressed areas equal to at least 85% of their statewide market share, and smaller ones must also write more.⁶ The models must account for mitigation by homeowners, businesses and communities.⁶ A companion regulation of 30 December 2024 allows the net cost of reinsurance in rates.⁷ It requires insurers to raise their writing in distressed areas by 5% every two years until they reach the threshold, and to use the same model for rates and for reinsurance.⁷ In December 2024 the Department also backed a public catastrophe model, then under study by a group led by Cal Poly Humboldt.⁶ A Model Advisor at the Department reviews each model before insurers can use it in a rate filing.⁶ The first review, of Verisk's model, tested how its results respond to fuels, to building and parcel characteristics and to policy terms.⁹ The standard requires the best available science on mitigation at the scale of the property, the community and the landscape.⁹ The detailed model information stays confidential until an insurer files a rate application that relies on the model.⁹ By August 2025 the Department had completed reviews of models from Verisk, Karen Clark and Company, and Moody's.⁸

Who sells an answer

A Fire Hazard Severity Zone gives one of three grades and leaves out home hardening and other mitigation.¹¹ A catastrophe model instead builds a catalogue of many simulated fires, because large losses are too rare for the historical record to price.¹⁰ Verisk described its own model to California legislators in 2023.¹⁰ Its catalogue varies temperature, rain, drought and fuel. Ignitions are placed from past ignition locations, the wildland-urban interface, fuel density, urbanicity and roads. Fire then spreads across fuel, slope and canopy, as surface fire, canopy fire and spotting from embers.¹⁰ The damage side weighs the property and the community, with factors that include roof type, siding, skylights and defensible space.¹⁰ Commercial fire-risk services are set out under Wildfire and exposure, among them Technosylva, FireVision and FLAIM.

What a small look ahead adds

A hazard zone and a risk score each give one answer for one area. A model of the street can run the same houses through many simulated fire seasons and then change one thing at a time. The changes might be a cleared five-foot zone on every house, a metal fence in place of a wood one, a neighbour's shed moved back, or a fuel break on the ridge above. The model can show which houses would ignite from embers and which from a burning neighbour, and how the number lost changes with each step. A Firewise committee choosing its year's work, or an owner choosing between new vents and a new roof, then has a ranked list instead of a zone colour.

Layers it shares

Vegetation and fuel, terrain, wind and weather records, building footprints and materials, and parcel boundaries, which the flood, heat and solar questions also need in part.