Wildfires

Wall Street brokers have started selling insurers' claims tied to Los Angeles' deadly wildfires, which may trigger a payout from the utilities blamed for the destruction, according to people familiar with the matter.

Estimates for the financial toll of the blazes range from $30 billion to as high as $250 billion, as homeowners grapple with premium hikes and non-renewals.

The scope of the disaster depends on whether it's insured losses, property damage or overall economic impact.

Fremont, a Bay Area city of 226,000, in September became the first municipality in the nation to buy its own citywide flood insurance policy.

First came a dry spell that parched the land, then a spark, followed by some wind. Suddenly, swaths of South Carolina were consumed by voracious flames.

The governor aims to secure federal funding with latest executive order in aftermath of Los Angeles fires.

California leads the nation with over 1.5 million at-risk properties, but many threatened homes sit east including $68 billion worth of Florida real estate.

Many homes that burned in the Eaton Fire lay outside the boundaries of state- or local-designated "very high" fire hazard severity zones, Bloomberg Green found after analyzing inspection reports by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, for more than 20,000 residential properties in areas affected by the recent wildfires.

Wildfire presents a significant challenge to California's property insurance market, and the impact is becoming more frequent and costly over time. Recently, we examined the current state of the California (CA) homeowners insurance market by exploring key components of the ecosystem, including the role of regulators, the CA FAIR Plan, and the involvement of the surplus lines markets, as well as current developments and potential implications of the fires in Los Angeles.

NEXT will use ZestyAI's property and wildfire models in its risk assessment processes.