Dave Cortese

Existing law creates the Department of Insurance and prescribes the department's powers and duties. Existing law generally regulates the business of insurance in the state, including the underwriting and ongoing monitoring of insured risks. Existing law generally requires an insurer or insurance producer to have underwriting guidelines that establish the criteria and process under which an insurer makes its decision to provide or to deny coverage.

Existing law requires an admitted insurer with written California premiums totaling $10,000,000 or more, to submit a report, as specified, to the commissioner with specified fire risk information on its residential property policies. Existing law requires the commissioner to post on the department's internet website a report on wildfire risk compiled from data collected from specified insurers.

This bill, upon appropriation for these purposes, would establish the Wildfire Safety and Risk Mitigation Program to fund the development, demonstration, and deployment of a public wildfire catastrophe model, as defined, and to provide grant funding to one or more universities for eligible projects with specified criteria for the purpose of creating a research and educational center responsible for developing, demonstrating, and deploying a public wildfire catastrophe model that provides significant wildfire safety benefits to California communities and assists alignment of federal, state, and local wildfire risk reduction efforts. The bill would create the Wildfire Safety and Risk Mitigation Account within the Insurance Fund for these purposes.

The bill, also upon appropriation for these purposes, would require the department to create a framework and multiyear plan with available data for the development, demonstration, and deployment of a public wildfire catastrophe model that includes specified information and to publish the plan on the department's internet website. The bill would require the department to provide recommendations to the Senate Committee on Insurance, Assembly Committee on Insurance, Assembly Committee on Emergency Management, Budget Committees, and the Governor for future budget allocations related to these provisions before September 1, 2026.