The insurance epidemic that has been sweeping the country has intensified lately with tens of thousands of cancellations in our Santa Cruz County alone as owners scramble to find new insurers.
Increasing numbers of residential and commercial owners have been notified that their properties are designated in a zone that dumps them in that high-risk pool that the insurance companies created called the California Fair Plan. Not only is the plan a complete misnomer, it is also woefully inadequate, requiring supplemental coverage to fill the gaps between what it provides and what the lenders mandate, which can drive annual costs of coverage for a single family residence upwards of $7,000.
Real Estate agents have found ourselves on the front lines networking to maintain a current list of agencies who will still write policies for our clients, but the list keeps dwindling as we help them shop multiple sources to get a better rate which sometimes includes tactics like bundling the homeowner’s insurance with their other policies.
On the bright side, there have been positive strides made in fire hardening practices to get rates down on individual homes, and this in turn has led to an increasing focus on ways to make entire communities safer, which many insurers are willing to give a discount for, if your neighborhood qualifies as a FireWise community.
This effort has been led by the FireSafe Council of Santa Cruz County and FireWise leader volunteers who have made it their mission to help fellow property owners improve their options. There are 56 recognized FireWise communities in our county so far, most of them in the CZU afflicted areas, and the hope is that all communities eventually get on board.
If you’d like to learn more, they are planning a Why Go FireWise Outreach event for Thursday, May 30th from 5:30pm-8pm @ the Seventh Day Adventist Campground (at the bottom of Soquel San Jose Rd). This is a free community event and is a rally call to local neighborhoods to talk about the very real threat of wildfire risk in the various communities throughout the county and to empower them to create FireWise neighborhoods. Supervisor Manu will be there as well as local CalFire and Central fire personnel. After presentations from Central Fire and CalFire leaders, Firewise will walk through the nuts and bolts of the program and leave time for Q&A. Ice cream will be served!
The immediate audience for this meeting are households who live along Soquel San Jose Rd (from Summit Rd down to Soquel Drive) and their adjacent roads, but of course they will welcome anyone curious to learn more. Perhaps you are onboard with the program and need help getting things going or need help finding neighbors who are interested in joining. Or perhaps you are in the middle of the process and have already seen a Why Go FireWise presentation and are in the process of applying, but either stalled out or need extra coaching to get to the next step.
In the end, the more FireWise communities we have along the major evacuation routes like Old San Jose Rd and elsewhere, the safer and more resilient these corridors can be.
Great Info Datta