Guides
Wildfire risk scores and how insurers use them
How wildfire risk scores are built, how insurers use them to accept, price or drop a home, and what California and Colorado law lets you see and appeal.
A wildfire risk score is a number, letter grade or tier that an insurer's model assigns to your address. Insurers use it to decide whether to offer you a policy, what to charge, whether to renew and sometimes which terms to attach. The score is not a government rating, and two insurers can rate the same house very differently. In California, and since July 1, 2026 in Colorado, the law gives you a right to see your score, to know what drives it and to appeal it.
What goes into a score
Insurers buy or build wildfire models and score each address on some mix of four things:
- The land around the house. Vegetation and fuel type, slope, aspect (which way the hillside faces) and how much wildland borders the property.
- The location. Fire history, prevailing wind, how far the nearest wildland is, and how a fire crew would get to you: road width, dead-end streets, distance to a station.
- The structure. Roof covering, vents, eaves, siding, windows, decks and attached fences, drawn from application answers, public records, and aerial or street-level imagery. See aerial imagery: how insurers inspect roofs from the sky.
- Mitigation. Defensible space, ember-resistant features and community programs such as Firewise USA sites.
California's regulation gives a feel for the inputs. It lets insurers use "fuel, slope, access, aspect, structural characteristics, wind" and other factors shown to be substantially related to wildfire loss (10 CCR §2644.9(e), read October 2026). It also requires every insurer that rates by wildfire risk to give credit for specific actions, which are listed in home hardening for wildfire and insurance discounts and defensible space and wildfire insurance.
Vendors differ in how they weigh these inputs, and each insurer layers on its own rules, so there is no single national score. A house can be "moderate" at one company and "high" at another. That is why shopping matters, and also why your complaint about a score only works against the insurer that used it.
Two kinds of wildfire model
It helps to separate two jobs that get blurred in news coverage.
Catastrophe models simulate thousands of possible fire seasons across an insurer's whole book to estimate losses, and they feed rates and reinsurance purchases. California's insurance department completed its review of wildfire catastrophe models from Verisk, Karen Clark & Company and Moody's in 2025, and said on August 1, 2025 that all three were available to every insurer. Insurers that use them in rates must commit to writing policies in high-risk areas under the state's Sustainable Insurance Strategy; see California's Sustainable Insurance Strategy and how catastrophe models shape your premium.
Property-level scores place one structure on a scale. These are the scores that decide whether your application is accepted and which rate tier you land in. California's definition of a "wildfire risk model" covers tools used to classify individual structures, and explicitly leaves out the models that project aggregate losses (10 CCR §2644.9(b)(6)).
How insurers use the score
The mechanics vary, but the same score tends to do several jobs at once:
- Underwriting. Above a cutoff, the insurer declines new business in that address or ZIP code. Cutoffs are internal underwriting guidelines and are not published.
- Pricing. The score places you in a wildfire rate tier. Higher tiers pay more for the same dwelling limit.
- Renewal. A rescored home can be nonrenewed even if you have never filed a claim. Nonrenewal rules differ by state; see nonrenewal vs cancellation of homeowners insurance: your rights.
- Terms. Some insurers attach conditions: a roof replacement, vegetation clearance by a deadline, a higher deductible.
- Credits. Mitigation discounts and reinstated eligibility follow from improvements the score recognizes.
Your rights in California and Colorado
California's regulation is the most detailed. If an insurer uses a wildfire risk score or classification, it must give it to you in writing on this schedule (10 CCR §2644.9(h), read October 2026):
| When | What the insurer owes you |
|---|---|
| Within 15 days after a completed application | The score or classification |
| At least 45 days before each renewal | The score or classification |
| At least 75 days before a nonrenewal | The score or classification |
| Within 30 days after you request a re-score following completed mitigation | A revised score |
The disclosure has to include the range of possible scores, where you fall and what that does to your premium, a written explanation tied to features of your property, and the mitigation measures that would lower the score with the premium reduction for each. You may appeal orally or in writing; the insurer must acknowledge within 10 calendar days and decide in writing within 30, and the response must tell you that you can contact the California Department of Insurance. Appeals made through an agent or broker move on a slightly faster acknowledgment schedule.
Colorado now has its own law. HB 25-1182, signed May 28, 2025 and effective July 1, 2026, requires insurers that use wildfire risk models or scores to share model information with the Division of Insurance, to offer mitigation discounts when their models do not already reflect property-level and community-level mitigation, to post on their websites how to earn discounts and how to appeal a score, and to send policyholders and applicants an annual written notice that includes the score or classification they use. Policyholders can appeal directly to the insurer. The Division has been writing implementing regulations, so check its website for the current rules.
Elsewhere, expect less. This guide did not find an equivalent score-disclosure mandate in other states; ask your insurer directly, and use the home insurance rules by state to find your regulator.
The honest argument about scores
Insurers and modelers say property-level scores are the practical way to price a risk that can destroy a house in an afternoon, because territory-wide pricing treats a cleared lot and an overgrown one the same. They also say scores let them reward the owners who clear vegetation and harden their roofs.
Consumer advocates and some regulators answer that models are opaque, that imagery and database errors can wrongly label a house, that mitigation credits do not always offset a high score, and that a score can push a whole neighborhood out of the standard market without any single owner having changed anything. Disclosure and appeal rights like California's and Colorado's came out of that criticism. They do not decide whether a model is right. They give you the chance to correct the facts it used.
What to do with your score
- Ask for it in writing and for the explanation of what drove it. In California and Colorado, this is a legal request, not a favor.
- Check the facts. Wrong roof type, a missing garage, a detached shed counted as part of the house, vegetation shown that was cleared years ago: these are the errors an appeal can fix.
- Do the mitigation the insurer lists and keep dated photos and receipts. Then ask for a re-score. Under California's rule you get a response within 30 days.
- Appeal in writing if the score still looks wrong, attaching your evidence, and keep the acknowledgment.
- Escalate to your state insurance department if the insurer ignores the deadline. how to file a complaint with your state insurance department explains the process.
- Get quotes elsewhere. Different insurers use different models. If you are nonrenewed, your home insurance was nonrenewed: what to do now and the nonrenewal action plan cover the clock you are on.
For a free look at the underlying hazard, the U.S. Forest Service's Wildfire Risk to Communities site maps likelihood and intensity for communities nationwide. It says it does not account for mitigation at individual homes, so it will not match an insurer's score, but it shows whether your area is considered exposed at all.
Key takeaways
- A wildfire risk score is an insurer-specific rating of your address; it can drive acceptance, price, renewal and policy terms, and different insurers produce different scores.
- California insurers that use scores must disclose them at application, 45 days before renewal and 75 days before nonrenewal, explain what drives them, and decide appeals within 30 days.
- Colorado's HB 25-1182, effective July 1, 2026, adds transparency duties and annual notices; other states may offer far less.
- Errors in property facts are the most fixable part of a score; document mitigation and ask for a re-score in writing.
- Catastrophe models used for rate-making are different from the property-level score that decides your own policy.