{"id":23984,"date":"2025-01-17T10:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T17:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-cost-of-homeowners-insurance-not-likely-to-rise-because-of-california-fires-for-now\/"},"modified":"2025-01-17T17:30:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T17:30:49","slug":"colorados-cost-of-homeowners-insurance-not-likely-to-rise-because-of-california-fires-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-cost-of-homeowners-insurance-not-likely-to-rise-because-of-california-fires-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s cost of homeowners insurance not likely to rise because of California fires \u2013 for now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Homes
Homes are seen in Louisville in 2022 after being destroyed by the Marshall Fire. The fire ignited Dec. 30, 2021, in Boulder County and destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in and around Superior and Louisville, and left thousands of people scrambling to evacuate, driven by winds that sometimes exceeded 100 mph. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The wildfires tearing through Los Angeles aren\u2019t likely to have an immediate impact on homeowner\u2019s insurance premiums in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Insurance premiums in Colorado have been climbing for several years. That means most insurance companies already built in the buffers they need against fires in the state, said Carole Walker, director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado \u2026 has allowed insurance companies to take the increased rate they need to respond to the market conditions and increased risk,\u201d she said. \u201cSo in Colorado, as we\u2019ve seen these higher insurance bills, we\u2019re in a better position because we\u2019ve seen that happen over the past several years. So we don\u2019t likely see an immediate impact in the California fires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insurance companies use complex models to target specific risks for specific areas, said Steve Hakes with Lafayette-based insurance brokerage Rocky Mountain Insurance Center. They aren\u2019t likely to view Colorado through the same lens they view California, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the insurance companies have used technology over the last couple of years to really hone in on specific territories as opposed to what used to be more regional,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On top of that, many insurers have already pulled back on writing new insurance policies in high-risk areas of Colorado after the 2021 Marshall Fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve already begun phasing out a lot of the mountain home insurance that they write,\u201d Hakes said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of cancellations, non-renewals from some of the companies \u2026 who have said, \u2018We don\u2019t want to deal with this anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, Colorado lawmakers will debut two major bills to rein in home insurance. The state will also begin selling insurance plans to homeowners who are no longer offered insurance in the private market, likely in the first few months of 2025.<\/p>\n

Coloradans currently pay some of the highest insurance premiums in the country. Home insurance costs $818 more per year on average compared with 2020, and Colorado now has the fourth-highest insurance premiums nationwide, according to a July research paper by Benjamin Keys and Philip Mulder.<\/p>\n

Coloradans need to think about the costs of insurance when they are making household budgets, RMIC\u2019s Walker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that insurance pays for is more expensive,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know people are crunching those numbers on everything from groceries to their property taxes. Insurance needs to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents currently pay some of highest insurance premiums in nation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23984"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}