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Here's how 'fire scores' can impact your homeowner's insurance

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

'Fire scores' play role in insurance coverage, rates

Fire scores are similar to credit scores, but measure the likelihood of fire danger for your home.

GROVELAND, Calif. (KGO) -- The Moc fire forced more than a thousand households to evacuate from Groveland near Yosemite.

Among them Susie Williams who is now safe and back in her home.

BAY AREA WILDFIRES: The latest on evacuation orders, road closures, containment numbers

"Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. we were allowed to return," she tells me. "So it was about five days."

On this day Williams and I are talking about the always hot topic in Groveland: fire insurance.

"My neighbors all have the same problem I do," Williams says. "In that every year people go through the same dance."

That "dance" is finding an insurance company that will cover their homes for fire. When Williams bought her home six years ago, she says, the original owners were paying $1,100 a year. Williams is now paying around $3,000, a near-tripling of her rate.

VIDEO: Here's what it's like driving through Santa Cruz County wildfire at night

Flames burning trees and bushes, embers flying across the road -- CAL FIRE shares daunting video from the middle of the CZU Lightning Complex Fire that has burned 74,000 acres in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

"It was not a gradual climb," Williams says. "It was very steep. All of a sudden, yes, you have got to pay a lot more for your insurance."

The area is seen as more likely to burn. Insurance companies subscribe to services that create "wildfire scores."

Amy Bach heads up the consumer group United Policy Holders. "There is something called a fire line score. (It) is similar to a credit score. So a private company developed this tool and they are selling it to insurance companies," she says.

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