Lately it seems like every day we are reading about a new fire, with the total for the two largest blazes in Southern California at 12,000 homes and counting, led by the Palisades Fire which has burned over 24,000 acres, and the Eaton Fire which has another 14,000 acres.
As Southern California braces itself for the long recovery process, I am reminded of the landscape that remained after the CZU Fire, as disaster cleanup crews criss-crossed the Bonny Doon and San Lorenzo Valley areas in their vans while homeowners wrangled with their insurance companies, often with the help of independent adjusters to recover the full amount of settlement they were entitled to, less a fee of 10% of what was collected.
Many of those lots that were burnt out remain vacant today: Some due to the red tape of the approval process, and others because the household opted to take their settlement money and rebuild in town where the insurance costs weren’t so high.
This week, the news of fires hit close to home yet again, as the Battery Fire in Moss Landing shut down Highway 1 and people are keeping their windows sealed up here in Santa Cruz as the air quality index has shot up to over 170, bringing back memories of the red skies we saw in 2000. Fortunately, that fire is not prone to spreading, but it was a grim reminder of the environmental consequences of such incidents.
Securing reasonable insurance these days involves a fair amount of time and research because coverages and costs for a replacement policy often vary widely for our rural clients whose carriers have either canceled their coverage outright or threatened to drop them unless they comply with onerous requirements.
In the case of a client of mine who recently bought a brick home nestled amidst a stand of Oaks in Ben Lomond, their insurance company is insisting that they take out all the trees on the property, despite the fact that the house is made of brick. Not only would this permanently alter the landscape of the property they fell in love with in the first place, but the bids they are getting for full removal are upwards of $50,000.
To help them explore their options, I connected them with a particularly diligent insurance broker who is shopping different carriers to switch their policy over to another company once they complete some selective culling and pruning done to help mitigate the risk to what they hope will meet the new carrier’s standard.
There is always the chance that they will need to keep bouncing one step ahead from one carrier to the next as each company tightens their requirements, and they may eventually be left with no option but to take out all the trees, but this strategy should at least help buy them some time in the short run.
At least for now, it’s worth it for them—and their beloved trees—to jump through the hoops.
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