BEND, OR -- Two state lawmakers from central and southern Oregon met in Bend this week with insurance agents and brokers to discuss the impact of wildfire risk on homeowners' policies. Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang organized the meeting of about 15 people, which also included fire experts and city officials, talking about the issue with Rogue Valley State Senator Jeff Golden and Central Oregon State Representative Emerson Levy.
Chang tells KBND News he wants to lead a statewide effort to make sure Oregonians in high fire-risk areas maintain their homeowners insurance, "We live in a fire prone environment. Insurers are responding to that by withdrawing coverage, increasing premiums. So, we need to acknowledge that we live in a fire-prone environment. But we also need to recognize that there are real things that we can do to reduce the probability of people's homes being destroyed in a fire." Those steps include reducing fire fuels and creating defensible space. "We need to get our community and our homeowners to do those things," says Chang, "But more importantly, from the perspective of this meeting, we need to get the insurance industry to recognize and give credit for those actions."
Chang says agents told the group they've been forced to raise rates or drop policies because of previous losses, "The insurance rate increases and coverage withdrawals that we've witnessed over the last couple of years are not the result of the state wildfire hazard maps. They are all about the insurance industry really recognizing an increasing risk in our communities across Oregon." He adds, "They really emphasized how much the catastrophic losses from the Labor Day 2020 fires are playing themselves out, financially, right now. I mean, these insurance carriers, they lost millions and millions and millions of dollars."
Mortgage lenders require properties to be insured and Chang says he's heard of instances where policies were dropped after the owner secured a mortgage, forcing the bank to call in the note, and leaveing the owner with a massive bill.
He hopes to host another meeting before the 2025 legislative session. Chang is pushing for lawmakers to approve a pilot program to certify entire neighborhoods that reduce wildfire fuels and create defensible space. He says it's not enough for just one or two properties to take precautions, "If a fire finds a suitable place to grow big and nasty on your neighbor's property, it's going to catch your house on fire, regardless of how much good work you've done." He believes such a program could then be used by insurers to reduce premiums.
