PLACER COUNTY, Calif. — A Placer County resident saw a dramatic drop in his homeowners insurance premium when he moved from rural North Auburn to a new development in Lincoln, despite a statewide insurance crisis.
ABC10 first met Craig Casey in 2019, at a town hall held by California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.
“Something needs to be done,” Casey told ABC10 at the time.
Casey and his wife attended the meeting because they had spent thousands of dollars hardening their nearly five-acre North Auburn property against wildfire risk, and their insurance company still dropped them.
The Caseys were forced to go to the bare-bones California FAIR Plan, costing them about $4,000 at the time just for fire coverage.
"It's unfortunate; we need insurance so we have to pay it,” Casey said.
Statewide, California’s homeowners insurance crisis of affordability and availability has only gotten worse in the past five years, with most of the major carriers pausing or limiting business here, citing the rising risk of wildfires, high cost of building materials and what they consider burdensome state regulations.
Last week, as ABC10 reported, Placer County supervisors sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom and Commissioner Lara, asking them to do more to alleviate the crisis. That’s when ABC10 reached back out to Craig Casey to see how his insurance situation had changed since 2019.
“I'm in a different place than I was five years ago,” Casey said.
He and his wife moved from their rural property in North Auburn, where they’d lived nearly 30 years, to a new development in Lincoln called Esplanade at Turkey Creek. He says insurance was one of several factors in that decision.
Between fire insurance with the FAIR Plan and a so-called ‘difference in conditions’ policy that covers other risks, they were paying about $7,500 per year.
“It was expensive to try to maintain that,” Casey said.
Now, for full coverage of their home, he said, “I'm paying $790 a year for everything, and I get very generous coverage on content and everything else.”
The developer of the Caseys’ gated community is Taylor Morrison, which owns Taylor Morrison Insurance Services — an agency recommended to the Caseys after they closed on the purchase of the house. Casey said they offered them a less-than-$800-a-year premium through Universal North America Insurance Company.
“I'm thrilled. It gives me a lot more jingle in my pocket,” Casey said. “That's a great benefit, a great boon for being here.”
ABC10 contacted the developer, Taylor Morrison.
A spokesperson said, “Taylor Morrison provides insurance options to customers building a home with the company. While purchasing insurance through the company is not required and customers can select any provider, Taylor Morrison strives to offer insurance options that best meet buyers' needs.”
ABC10 reached out to the California Building Industry Association to ask if they’re seeing other developers offer insurance to people buying new homes. A spokesperson said the person who could address that question wasn’t in the office Thursday.
Even though Casey's personal homeowners insurance situation has improved, he said he'd still like to see California’s insurance market stabilize.
“It's a huge problem in this state,” he said.
A year ago, Commissioner Lara announced his Sustainable Insurance Strategy, with a promise to have it implemented by the end of 2024.
It includes expediting the rate approval process for insurance companies; allowing insurers to use forward-looking, so-called 'catastrophe modeling' when pricing their products - but only if they agree to write more policies in wildfire-prone areas; and shoring up solvency protections for the California FAIR Plan. That's the state-mandated insurer of last resort, which has ballooned in recent years as other carriers have pulled out of the market.
Insurance experts are hopeful these measures will help stabilize the market starting next year.
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