Now, the multiple Los Angeles County fires are expected to easily surpass that, raising questions about the future availability and affordability of homeowners insurance. Many who had lost homes in the fires had been dropped by their insurers before the disaster struck.
Last month, Mercury Insurance, one of the state's largest homeowners carriers, offered a glimmer of hope when it said it would start writing new policies in the Sierra Nevada foothills community, still in the early stages of rebuilding with less density under a new building code intended to make it more fire resistant.
Nevertheless, Victor Joseph, president of the Los Angeles-based insurer and son of its founder, said the company remains committed to insuring homes in the state. In an interview, he discussed how Paradise's reconstruction offers lessons for rebuilding after the Palisades and Eaton fires and steps that would make it more likely for insurers to offer policies. Why would you start writing new policies in Paradise after the huge losses insurers suffered there?
It's very different, the construction you see there now from how it was before the fires happened. If you go on something like Google Street View, and pull up the images of Paradise, it looks like a completely different city. Read more: Chubb reports L. What are the most important changes in the community? First you have a kind of broad outlying area β how they're managing fuel. And what we've seen with the science is once you get over 30 feet of separation between structures, you have much less concern about radiant heat as a factor in causing urban conflagrations.
Then you have a number of codes and changes that they've made within the city. Companies like us put a lot of emphasis on what you have zero to five feet from your home. People love to have shrubbery and trees near their homes. They found a few sort of creative workarounds.
