2020 was the most devastating year of wildfires in modern California state history with over four million acres burned. An incredible 9,639 fires destroyed over 4% of California’s 100 million total acres. The emotional, environmental, and monetary toll was almost unimaginable with more than 10,000 structures lost and $12.079 billion worth of damage done.

Not only was it a record-breaking year in the worst possible way, but combined with 2018’s devastation such as the Paradise Camp Fire, it caused insurance companies to rethink the policies they offer in high-risk areas… which now includes a huge swath of the Golden State. Companies dealt with the dilemma in different ways, commonly opting to either not renew customers’ policies at all or to dramatically increase their rates. Because of this, insurance policies for homeowners in many parts of California are increasingly limited, and month after month more people are finding their policies terminated by companies who simply aren’t willing to carry the tremendous liability.

The Insurance Services Office (or ISO) is the leading source of information for casualty risk and has developed a method to help companies and consumers navigate the updated underwriting guidelines that California is now subject to. They created and trademarked a new system which determines a property’s “FireLine” score. Simply put, this is a systematic way of ranking the level of risk each property carries. Based on various factors relating to home itself paired with satellite images of the surrounding property, a score is given from 0-30. The higher the fireline score, the higher the risk, and thus the more liability for the company and the higher the price for the consumer.