Frank Egger’s home insurance story mirrors many others whose home insurance policies were non-renewed and who faced the CA FAIR Plan as the alternative. But he gained some insights into why so many people in Fairfax may be being non-renewed.
Frank is a former seven term Mayor of Fairfax, a town in Marin County. He bought a 900-square-foot home there in 1962. It’s been extensively re-modelled and is now 1,600-square-feet. He put on a 50-year Class A roof with new gutters and gutter guards in 2011 and rewired the house.
He’s got two trees in his courtyard that he keeps trimmed back and there is a fire hydrant on the corner across the street. After 20 years of Kemper home insurance with the most recent premium of $2,400, in January 2024, the company told Frank they were non-renewing his policy.
His broker wanted to put him onto the CA FAIR Plan because she said there was nothing else was to be had. Frank was astonished at the quote he got for the FAIR Plan’s fire coverage and a wraparound policy. “It was $5,551 and it only covered the basics. Then $4,000 more for liability, wind and water damage. $9,551 for one year of homeowners insurance in Fairfax.” Frank said no thanks and found another broker who offered him HomeSite home insurance with a $3,800 premium. It comes with 40% less coverage and a much higher deductible.
In the meantime, Frank thinks he knows what might be helping to give Fairfax the highest percentage of non-renewals of comprehensive home insurance policies among Marin’s 11 cities. It has to do with the Insurance Institute of Business and Home Safety (IBHS). That nonprofit institute supported by property insurers, reinsurers, and affiliated companies, describes itself as on a research mission to strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natural disasters and other causes of loss.
The Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority (MWPA) shares data with participating agencies including towns and fire districts. It has a Wildfire Risk Home Evaluation Program that focusses on how to defend homes from wildfire. Many homeowners are happy to get wildfire prevention inspection reports that tell them what to do to mitigate fire risk so they can protect themselves against wildfire.
But there’s a problem. “The fire department is coming into Fairfax under the umbrella of the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority and doing all the inspections but then your inspection results can get forwarded to IBHS, an industry group that is run by the insurance industry,” said Frank. “I think that is why so many people are being dropped in Fairfax.”
Frank had a fire inspection a few years ago and the fire department said they would produce an inspection report, but he never tried to access his. But if he had gotten it online, the MWPA privacy policy states that consumers must give up personal information by clicking “agree” to the privacy practices described or they can’t access the report.
The privacy policy states that the personal data, “including what information in the report a Site Visitor views or clicks and for how long,” is collected by Google Analytics, a web analytics service. It is unclear whether Google sells this information to home insurers.
Further the policy states, “We share your Personal Data with our vendor, Fire Aside, who operates this Site on our Behalf.” Fire Aside is a software platform form that partners with local fire agencies and shares information to help communities adapt to wildfire. “Our software manages actual vegetation and structural information at the individual parcel level,” it states. FireAside secures personal information on the website, but it is unclear whether it has a relationship with the insurance industry that could find its data useful. Its privacy policy states, “We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.”
Frank said that a local lawyer and friend explained that there is more language that consumers see when they access their wildfire prevention inspection report. That includes being offered a box to check off.
The language corresponding to the box states: “Only with your permission, which will be obtained when you click ‘I consent’ in the check box labeled ‘Share Report with IBHS,’ we may provide the Insurance Institute of Business and Home Safety (IBHS) with access to information from your inspection report(s) for IBHS’s evaluation of your property’s eligibility for their Wildfire Prepared Designation. The IBHS Wildfire Prepared designation may be used by insurance companies to evaluate whether a property complies with measures that make the property safer in the event of a wildfire.”
Insurance companies are beginning to require this designation of homeowners that the companies would otherwise non-renew, requiring them to take specific and sometimes costly steps to mitigate their properties against wildfire to renew their home insurance policies. Access to the inspection report will not be provided to the IBHS if the box is left unchecked, the language states. But then consumers risk outright nonrenewal of their insurance policies.
Frank surmises that many people automatically click the box to ensure their policies are renewed without understanding that insurance companies may non-renew their policy based on the information.
“I have been serving on boards and councils for 54 years and I know how this stuff works,” said Frank. “Nobody reads the fine print. Everyone thinks, oh, we are getting a fire inspection and that’s great, and if you have the share results checked off then it goes straight to the IBHS. Your fire inspection works against you, it will cause you to lose your fire insurance.”
Frank declined to access his home wildfire prevention inspection report online. But based on his own experience, Frank strongly suspects that online privacy policies are permeable, and his inspection report was likely leaked to insurers, perhaps helping along his own non-renewal.