Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara ordered insurance companies to preserve 209,881 residential property insurance policies held by wildfire survivors included in an October 22 emergency declaration, bringing the total statewide to 618,700 policyholders across 31 counties who have temporary protection from non-renewals or cancellations by their insurance companies.
The order includes the River Complex, French, Washington, Windy, KNP Complex, and Hopkins wildfires and protects those residential property insurance policyholders living within the perimeter or adjoining ZIP Codes of the declared wildfire disasters regardless of whether they suffered a loss.
Commissioner Lara’s ability to issue these residential insurance policyholder moratoriums is a result of a California law that he authored in 2018 while serving as state senator in order to provide temporary relief from non-renewals to residents living within or adjacent to a declared wildfire disaster. The Commissioner’s action is part of a comprehensive solution he is pursuing that includes increasing insurance protections and market competition to help protect consumers.
