Colorado’s wildfire insurance plan isn’t going to work
Re: “A big test for state’s insurance reforms,” August 16 news story.
Coloradans living in the mountains, and most others, continue to rearrange the deck chairs on their burning ship. Instead of addressing the root cause of human-caused climate change – greenhouse gases – they look for an insurance solution. They will not find one.
Private insurance companies exist to make money. The actuaries they employ to calculate premiums deal in cold, hard numbers. The more buildings that burn, the higher premiums will go until few, if any, will be able to afford insurance.
Colorado has instituted its FAIR insurance program for properties that are uninsurable. The FAIR plan only covers the actual cash value of a home. This is replacement cost minus depreciation.
General accounting practices assign a useful life to a property’s assets of between 20 years and 50 years. So, if a person builds a $750k house in a forest, insures it with the FAIR plan, and it burns 10 years later, the payout would be replacement cost minus 36.4%, not to exceed $750,000 under any circumstances.
So, the choices are not good for mountain property owners. Either “go naked” (no insurance) or pay for the FAIR plan, which is designed not to cover actual replacement costs.
But these are deck chair issues. The northern hemisphere is literally on fire this summer. Since humans like to avoid uncomfortable actions to correct problems of their own making, there will be years of disasters before meaningful action is taken to reduce greenhouse gases, and the costs associated with this will only increase the longer we wait.
Guy Wroble, Denver
Didn’t build fire-resistant? Here’s the next best thing
Re: “Colorado communities should use new tools to protect themselves from wildfire,” August 15 guest commentary.
I read the guest commentary on August 15 by Ryan Maye Handy about Colorado’s new mandatory wildfire building code, requiring new homes in high-risk areas to be built with materials that resist flames and wind-blown embers. She acknowledges that older homes did not use the new mandatory codes.
There are important measures current homeowners can take to reduce fire risk by using landscape design with defensible space, best practices and ignition-resistant plants. Did you know that our ubiquitous juniper bushes that you see in so many communities are high in resins that ignite quickly?
Colorado State University Extension has information about choosing low-ignition plants. They also have a low-flammability demonstration garden at the Lookout Mountain Nature Center and Preserve in Golden. Colorado State Forest Service field offices have wildfire mitigation recommendations for creating space between potential fuel sources and structures.
So, even if you own a house built before these new codes are enacted, you can take measures to reduce your fire risk by using some of these guides.
Nancy Shepard, Westminster
Protect our lands from literal and figurative arsonists
Re: “Fed job cuts are making wildfires harder to fight”, August 15 news story.
Since last year, the Trump administration has cut 5,800 Forest Service jobs, making it harder to prepare for and respond to this year’s intense wildfire season. While we don’t yet know what the toll will be in lives lost, homes and businesses destroyed, and forests turned into moonscapes, we should be asking elected federal officials and candidates for federal office what they will do to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Federal job cuts, the rollback of programs addressing the climate crisis, and the continued expansion of the fossil fuel and artificial intelligence industries have all contributed to the devastation from fires we see and read about in the news every day.
The people responsible have names like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Russell Vought, Chris Wright, Darren Woods, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman. We try, convict, fine, and imprison arsonists. We need to do the same with these arsonists of our public lands and communities.
J. Kevin Cross, Fort Collins
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