ISO ratings losing favor The UVFD has an ISO rating of 4/4X on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the highest. The City of Ukiah has an ISO rating of 3. While wildfires are a natural occurrence in California, the effects of prolonged drought, high tree mortality rates from bark beetles and other infestations, high fuel loads and ladder fuels in wildland areas, record high temperatures, and longer fire seasons are resulting in increasingly extreme and destructive wildfires both in the wildland areas as well as the wildland urban interface (WUI) and even urban areas. There is a growing trend of insurance companies issuing non-renewal notices for existing homeowner’s insurance policies due to high wildfire risk.
The insurability of property has historically been closely tied to the ISO rating classification system. With the changing landscape of wildfires in California, some insurance companies are moving away from ISO rating altogether and some are also relying on information regarding the level of fire severity established by CAL FIRE. With more sophisticated fire behavior modeling available, CAL FIRE is anticipated to update the 2007 Fire Hazard Severity Zones mapping, which could potentially result in property being re-classified into a higher fire severity zone and becoming less insurable. As a last resort, the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) Plan is a fire insurance pool comprised of all California licensed insurers to provide insurance for property owners that are not able to obtain basic coverage in the voluntary insurance market. There may be properties within the UVFA boundary that have received notice of non-renewal, but the UVFA has not received reports of property owners unable to find coverage from other insurance providers. from 2022 soi report -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/massfire/CAFXWwKa6OJUb--C4QSbwg63Dby-iW%2BpbgY0v0%3DfHb5WA%2BdmoWw%40mail.gmail.com.
