{"id":2128,"date":"2025-10-13T19:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/2128\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T19:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:31:12","slug":"california-enacts-law-for-transparent-wildfire-risk-model-to-help-homeowners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/2128\/","title":{"rendered":"California enacts law for transparent wildfire risk model to help homeowners"},"content":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Legislation for a fully transparent public wildfire catastrophe model was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom late Friday. <\/p>\n

The new law, SB 429, aims to empower California consumers by challenging the secretive wildfire risk algorithms used by insurance companies to raise rates. <\/p>\n

The bill’s author, Sen. Dave Cortese (D-15), mandates California universities and the Department of Insurance to develop the model, with funding approved in the 2025 budget.<\/p>\n

Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, emphasized the need for transparency.<\/p>\n

“Homeowners are fed up with insurance companies\u2019 black-box models that penalize consumers for fire risk but refuse to explain how they calculate it,” said Balber. “Even when they do everything to protect their homes from wildfires, homeowners face extreme price hikes or lose their insurance completely.”<\/p>\n

A fully transparent wildfire model will level the playing field and empower consumers to keep their insurance and make their homes and communities safer.<\/p>\n

SB 429 requires full public access to all aspects of the wildfire catastrophe model, including documentation, programs, and the underlying data and algorithms. <\/p>\n

Currently, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara<\/a> exempts insurance companies from disclosing similar information about their private models used to set rates.<\/p>\n

[RELATED] Calls for CA Insurance Commissioner resignation grow amid report on luxury travel spending<\/a><\/p>\n

California regulations stipulate that home insurance companies must offer discounts to consumers who meet any of ten wildfire safety measures or reside in a certified wildfire safe community. <\/p>\n

However, these discounts are often minimal, and insurance companies can bypass them by opting not to sell insurance to specific customers. <\/p>\n

Balber added, “Consumers must be rewarded for making their homes \u2013 and by extension our communities \u2013 safer.”<\/p>\n

Insurance companies should not be allowed to continue pushing all the cost of climate change on the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Legislation for a fully transparent public wildfire catastrophe model was signed into law by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3003,709,3002,3001,3004,2684,3000],"class_list":["post-2128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-consumers","tag-governor-newsom","tag-insurance","tag-legislation","tag-sb-429","tag-transparency","tag-wildfire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}