Latest Wildfire Headlines
All the headlines from our Wildfire Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Will California See More Laws and Regulations in Wake of Wildfires?
Dec 3 2018 // Last year’s California wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and cost billions of dollars, but they also created numerous new laws and regulations in their wake as Legislators and insurance regulators looked for...
Imagery and Artificial Intelligence in Wildfire Risk
Dec 3 2018 // Fires across North America in 2018 have continued the pattern of extreme destruction established by significant insured loss events in both Northern and Southern California last year and the 2016 disasters in Alberta and...
Reducing Fire Risk Doesn’t Cost More
Dec 3 2018 // Properties built in wildfire-prone areas could be built to better withstand fire risk without increasing the cost of construction. That’s according to a new study released last month that found negligible cost...
California Seizes Small Insurer Merced P&C Due to Wildfire Claims
Dec 2 2018 // California regulators moved Friday to take over an insurance company that can’t pay out all claims following a massive wildfire that destroyed more than 13,000 homes. Merced Property & Casualty Company was pushed...
Modeler: Insured Losses from Woolsey Fire in Southern California at Least $2.5B
Nov 30 2018 // Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide on Friday said it estimates that insured losses from the Woolsey Fire in Southern California will be at least $2.5 billion. Moody’s on Thursday released estimates showing...
2.9M Colorado Residents Now Living in Areas at Risk Of Wildfire
Nov 29 2018 // The number of Coloradans whose homes are at risk from wildfires soared 45 percent in five years, reflecting the state’s booming population and changing uses of agricultural land, state officials said. The Colorado...
Moody’s Says California Wildfire Losses Will Impact P/C Insurer, Reinsurer 4Q Earnings
Nov 29 2018 // Moody’s has released estimates showing property/casualty insurers and reinsurers total insured losses at $10 billion $15 billion from the California wildfires, which destroyed more than 20,000 residential and...
How Insurer Deployed Technology to Expedite Wildfire Claims
Nov 29 2018 // As wildfires raged this month in California, insurance claims experts at Travelers sat in a command center 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometers) away in Connecticut, monitoring screens showing satellite images, photos from...
Fitch Warns of Negative Credit Effects on Reinsurance from California Wildfires
Nov 28 2018 // The “downside credit risks” from the California wildfires are the most pronounced for investor-owned utilities, which could face large liabilities if IOU equipment is found to have ignited the fires. And...
PG&E Decided Not to Cut Power as Winds Raged Before California Wildfire
Nov 28 2018 // In the days before California’s deadliest wildfire erupted near a PG&E Corp. power line during a windstorm, the company kept a close eye on the weather, warned customers it might shut off electricity in the area,...
Managing Natural Disasters Becomes Priority for Nation’s Governors
Nov 28 2018 // Governors have a wide range of priorities they want to tackle in the coming year, from tax reform to education. Yet it’s a topic that receives less attention on the campaign trail and in their speeches that could...
Report Puts Losses from California Wildfires at $15B to $19B
Nov 27 2018 // Total losses from the wildfires in Northern and Southern California could reach from $15 billion to $19 billion, a report out on Tuesday shows. The report from industry data provider CoreLogic shows total losses from the...
Bill to Give PG&E Relief from California Wildfire Burden Nears, But Long-Term Fix Elusive
Nov 27 2018 // PG&E Corp., suspected of starting California’s deadliest wildfire, may soon get help from state lawmakers – just not the help it most wants. An assemblyman plans to introduce a bill in January that would give...
Research Finds Fire-Resistant Building Codes Do Not Raise Home Prices
Nov 27 2018 // Homes in wildfire-prone areas around the U.S. could be built to better withstand blazes without increasing the cost of construction, according to a new report. The research released Tuesday was sponsored in part by the...
Wildfire Relief for PG&E in California May Not Include Fix Utility Wants
Nov 26 2018 // PG&E Corp., suspected of starting California’s deadliest wildfire, may soon get help from state lawmakers – just not the help it most wants. As early as Dec. 3, a lawmaker plans to introduce a bill that would...
Report by 13 U.S. Agencies Warns of Dire Economic Effects from Climate Change
Nov 25 2018 // As California’s catastrophic wildfires recede and people rebuild after two hurricanes, a massive new federal report warns that these types of disasters are worsening in the United States because of global warming....
A.M. Best Assesses Wildfires’ Effect on Home Insurance Market, Insurers’ PG&E Exposure
Nov 20 2018 // Roughly one-in-10 insurers have exposures to PG&E bonds, which could potentially used to payout on losses from the California wildfires, according to ratings agency A.M. Best. It was recently determined that a second...
PG&E’s $1.4B in Wildfire Insurance May Not Be Enough, But Was ‘Regular Amount’
Nov 20 2018 // PG&E Corp.’s $1.4 billion in wildfire insurance may not be enough to cover all its potential liabilities from the deadliest blaze in California history. But the company wasn’t necessarily skimping on...
Lawmaker in California Working on Fire Relief Legislation for PG&E
Nov 20 2018 // A bill that would help PG&E Corp. absorb liabilities from this year’s fatal wildfires in California is being drafted at the request of a state assemblyman who helped shepherd earlier legislation on the...
Latest Estimates of Insured Losses from California Wildfires at $9B to $13B
Nov 19 2018 // Insured losses from the Camp and Woolsey wildfires in California will be between $9 billion and $13 billion, according to the latest estimates from catastrophe modeler RMS. RMS’ latest estimates released on Monday...
