Wildfire risk scoring transparency bill passes state Senate

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer’s bill to provide consumers with more information about the wildfire risk scores impacting their home insurance passed out of the Washington state Senate on Wednesday, 48-1.

Kuderer called Senate Bill 5928, requested by her office and prime sponsored by Sen. Judy Warnick (R – Moses Lake), a common-sense consumer protection bill.

“These wildfire risk scores are instrumental in a lot of homeowners finding coverage, but learning any of the specifics can be challenging,” Kuderer said. “If your home is being evaluated and there’s financial consequences for you, you deserve to know where that score came from and what you can do to improve it.”

Insurance companies use third-party wildfire risk scores to evaluate a property’s exposure and to determine eligibility for coverage, pricing, and renewals. Companies establishing these scores use satellite imagery, property data, insurance loss data, and fire science to create wildfire risk assessments, down to the individual property level, and then sell these scores to insurance companies. 

Wildfire risk scores are separate from Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau classifications, which evaluate community-level data on fire response, not property conditions. They’re also different than climate-related risk scores available on real estate websites, which aren’t used in insurance underwriting.

These scores, however, may fail to account for community or property-level mitigation efforts. 

The bill requires insurance companies to disclose wildfire risk scores when used, explain the factors behind the score, and provide plain-language steps consumers can take to improve their score. Property owners who have done mitigation work since their last evaluation, or see demonstrable inaccuracies with their current evaluation, will be able to appeal those decisions.

Representatives from the Washington Hospitality Association, Washington Realtors, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and the Washington Fire Chiefs Association all signed on in support of the bill during public testimony hearings.

The bill now moves to the House of Representatives for consideration.