Fire insurance rates jump after Airport Company 25 left off list

Some homeowners in the Mt. Bullion and Jerseydale areas could be paying thousands of dollars more for fire insurance after an evaluation earlier this year by the Insurance Services Office (ISO).

Little known outside the insurance industry, ISO is an independent company that evaluates fire departments every five years. Its risk analysis is used by insurance companies to set premiums for fire insurance.

This story came to us from a reader.

Paul Brown, who lives on Mt. Bullion Ridge Road, reached out to the Mariposa Gazette after his fire insurance recently jumped more than 60 percent, from $9,000 to $16,000.

Brown, who gets his insurance through the California FAIR plan, said his broker told him ISO changed a rating because fire engine Company 25, located at the Mariposa Yosemite Airport, no longer appeared active.

It had been removed from the county’s website list.

“The main problem was that our area — Mt. Bullion — was now a Class 10 fire risk, up from Class 7. And the reason, she said, was that the county had stopped listing the Mariposa Airport Fire Station on their website,” Brown told the Gazette.

CAL FIRE Chief Cole Periera said leaving Company 25 off the county’s website was the result of a “big miscommunication.” It was back on the website this week after inquiries from the Mariposa Gazette.

Chief Periera said after questions from the Gazette, he contacted the inspector for ISO and explained that Company 25 still maintains a fire engine that is available for volunteer firefighters responding to any blaze.

In addition, he noted that CAL FIRE maintains a helicopter at the airport and stressed the mutual aid agreements in place between the county and CAL FIRE.

The issue with the Jerseydale fire station involves a different set of issues, said Periera.

That Jerseydale station is operated by the U.S. Forest Service who removed a fire engine from the location in 2020 and 2021. It was used to supplement coverage offered by Lushmeadows Company 29.

“We’re working to get that apparatus back,” said Periera.

A big part of his job has become learning how to place equipment around the county strategically so volunteer firefighters “can jump on an apparatus and respond.”

Fifty percent of the ISO rating is based on “Fire Department Capabilities,” which includes staffing levels, training, operational readiness, equipment and the geographical distribution of fire stations.

The ISO evaluates fire protection areas on a 10-point scale: Class 1 is for top-tier fire protection, while Class 10 means the area does not meet minimum standards.

The Mariposa County fire protection was rated a Class 5 overall, right in the middle along with more than 8,000 other fire departments in the United States.

Insurance ‘death spiral’

A Stanford Climate & Energy Policy study last month showed that between 2020 and 2026, home insurance premiums increased more than 100 percent for the residents in all the zip codes in Mariposa County.

In fact, rates in the Sierra Nevada foothills are increasing faster than anywhere else in the state.

The average home insurance increase in California was 84 percent.

The report documents how the FAIR plan, California’s insurer of last resort, is getting more policy holders in fire-prone areas that were initially turned away by traditional insurers.

This has resulted in an increase in the average cost of coverage.

Brown, the reader who lives on Mt. Bullion, worries the FAIR plan may go into a “death spiral.”

“Many people can’t afford $10,000 rates per year, meaning only those at really high risk will get insurance, meaning that rates go up even more, a death spiral,” he said.

“And I suspect that this is going to impact the property market since it will be hard to sell your home when the buyer is facing these types of rates. That doesn’t bode well for the population of the county,” Brown wrote.