The Los Angeles Times has published an article on how the State of California will require insurance discounts for property owners who reduce wildfire risk.
“California will become the first state in the nation to require insurance premium discounts for owners of homes and businesses that are made safer from wildfires. New rules mandate that insurance companies reward consumers who take wildfire safety and mitigation actions under the state’s Safer From Wildfires framework, the Department of Insurance announced Monday. The framework includes a list of expert-recommended actions that home and business owners can take to better protect themselves from fires.”
While these fire mitigation recommendations do not suggest using a fire retardant, they do list the insurance providers which offer a discount based on community mitigation, stating that “several companies offer both community-wide discounts (for example, a home in a Firewise or a Shelter-In-Place community) and home-specific discounts (for example, maintaining defensible space or home-safety measures against wind-blown embers)”.
Preparing your property with certified Komodo applicators or a Do-It-Yourself Kit is a great way to protect against wind-blown embers. Talk to your insurance company about what they require as far as documentation and proof of application of fire retardant.
The regulation is a response to skyrocketing insurance costs for residents in wildfire-prone areas.
'There’s no question that mitigation efforts can improve the safety of individual homes and businesses and their surrounding areas’, said Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire’s deputy director of community wildfire preparedness and mitigation.
‘Home-hardening retrofits, along with defensible space, significantly increase a home’s chance of surviving a wildfire,’ Berlant said. ‘Using the latest fire science and recent wildfire data, these retrofits and landscaping requirements provide a strong path to structure survivability.’”
Contact us today to discuss how to fire harden your house in an environmentally friendly way, using Komodo Fire Systems.