Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes

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A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen.Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan.

1, 2028.Business State legislation introduced Wednesday would require insurers to offer California homeowners insurance if they take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their properties.It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.

Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.In voting against the bill Sen.Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: �...