We’re at the start of fire season and right in
the middle of a three-year drought. Right
now, protecting our homes and families
from wildfire is on our minds, but after a
fire a related issue will become the primary
focus — insurance.
My wife and I live outside Ukiah in a semi-rural area, surrounded by flammable
vegetation. We think about our danger
often, as we lost our home in the 1991
Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire that destroyed
more than 3,000 homes.
Shortly after the Oakland Hills fire, a third
of the 3,000 families were devastated again
-- by insurance problems. Some of these
problems meant families were unable to
rebuild their homes.
I’m a journalist by trade. After the fire I
started a newspaper for fire survivors.
We covered issues important to people
trying to get their lives back together.
The dominant concern was getting a fair
insurance settlement that would allow
families to rebuild their houses and lives.
Some older couples were underinsured
because they had paid off their home loans
and neglected the occasional upgrade
mailers from their insurance agents. Others
had added rooms, but their insurance
didn’t reflect the added value.
Over 1,000 families had difficulty getting
what they felt was a fair settlement.
Eventually, under the glare of publicity,
some big companies upgraded their
policies after the fact, especially when
policyholders banded together to
negotiate as a unit.
|
So now here we are in the Ukiah hills. When
we bought our house in 2001 we signed
up with a major insurance company. All
went well until two years ago, when the
company notified us that our property
had been inspected and found to be a
fire hazard. They told us we would have
to clear up to 300 feet around our house
before they would certify us as safe. Can you imagine clearing 300 feet around
a hillside home in the middle of a forest?
Yet many insurance companies are
demanding this amount of clearing, and
even more, as a requirement for renewal.
We challenged whether our company
had actually inspected our property or
simply looked at Google Earth photos. The
California Department of Insurance helped
us confront our insurance carrier about
their 300-foot requirement.
During this process we learned a crucial
fact: that our company’s agents had been
instructed to get rid of as many policies
as they could in “fire-prone” areas (e.g.,
California).
Ultimately, our insurance company told us
that our policy would continue in effect
for at least the next year … but we would
likely have to go through the same thing
when we again tried to renew.
By then we decided to cut our losses. We
switched to another insurer which did not
have the “fire-prone” designation.
A fire has two parts — before and after.
Making sure that you have adequate
insurance, adjusted for the economy, is
just as important as fire prevention.
|
