HOMEOWNERS GUIDE

Wildfire risk score appeals: what your insurer must tell you, and by when

In California, an insurer that rates your home on wildfire risk must give you the score in writing at least 45 days before each renewal and 75 days before any nonrenewal, explain it, list the mitigation steps that would lower it with the premium effect of each, and decide a written appeal within 30 days. Oregon requires a detailed notice when wildfire risk drives a cancellation, nonrenewal or increase, and Colorado's score and appeal law took effect July 1, 2026. The three laws appear side by side below, with California's deadlines worked into a calendar you can copy.

Disclaimer: Published averages and benchmark ranges, not a quote. This page is not insurance advice and makes no forecast about any renewal. Your premium will differ based on your home, location, claims history, and insurer. Flood insurance is separate from a standard homeowners policy.

What a wildfire risk score is

A wildfire risk score is the number or class an insurer assigns to a property to rank its exposure to wildfire. California's regulation defines the tool behind it broadly. A Wildfire Risk Model, in 10 CCR 2644.9, is any tool, instrumentality, means or product, including a map-based tool, a computer-based tool or a simulation, that an insurer uses to measure or assess the wildfire risk of a structure, either to classify individual structures by wildfire risk or to estimate the losses that go with each class. The California Department of Insurance's consumer FAQ puts it more simply: insurance companies typically give a "wildfire risk score" to your home or business.

The score is not your premium and not a decision on its own. It is one input to a rating plan that also weighs everything else about the home. But where it moves the premium, or tips an underwriting decision, it is the input you can most directly challenge, because it is built from features of your property that you can see, measure, change and document. That is the reason three states have written rules about it.

One distinction before the rules. A score is about the property's exposure. It is not your claims history; that lives in the CLUE database our CLUE report guide explains. And it is not the state's published average premium, which describes a group of policies in a past period. A score is the most individual number in your rating file, which is why the rules below focus on explaining it to you.

Three states, side by side

The table reads each state's own text. California's is a regulation in force since October 14, 2022. Oregon's comes from the enrolled text of Senate Bill 82 (2023). Colorado's comes from the Colorado General Assembly's summary of House Bill 25-1182 as enacted. Other states may have their own rules; ask your state insurance department.

California's rule is the most detailed, so most of this page works through it. If you live in Oregon or Colorado, use the same steps, but measure the insurer's notice against your own state's column.

California's four disclosure moments, as a calendar

Subdivision (h) of the regulation sets four moments when the insurer must hand you the score in writing. The dates below are a worked calendar for a hypothetical policy renewing on January 1, 2027, computed by this desk from the regulation's day counts. They show the method; your own renewal date drives your own dates.

In practice the clock means two things. First, the 45-day disclosure arrives inside the shopping window. If the score surprises you, you have about six weeks to appeal, document mitigation, and compare other insurers on identical terms before the renewal date, which is the method our renewal shopping guide sets out. Second, the post-mitigation request is a lever you control. Finish a measure, send the proof, and ask for a revised score in writing; the 30-day clock starts with your request, not with the insurer's next scheduled review.

What the explanation must contain

Subdivision (k) is where the regulation does the most for a homeowner. Whenever the insurer provides the score, it must also provide, in writing:

1. the range of scores or classifications that could possibly be assigned to anyone;
2. where your score sits within that range, and the impact of the score on the rate or premium;
3. a detailed written explanation of why you received that score, making specific reference to the features of your property that influenced it;
4. which mitigation measures you could take to lower the score; and
5. the amount of premium reduction you would realize for each measure, under the rating plan in effect at the time.

Read the explanation you receive against that list, item by item. A letter that gives a score with no range, or a range with no reference to your property's features, or a list of measures with no dollar figure beside each one, is missing something the regulation requires. Write back and ask for the missing item by its number in subdivision (k). That request is not an appeal yet; it is a request for the information the appeal will need.

The property-feature item deserves the closest reading. If the explanation says the roof is not Class A, the vents are open, or there is a shed within 30 feet, those are facts you can check by walking outside. Scores built from aerial imagery, old records or map-based tools can miss work done since the data was gathered. The explanation is where that mismatch becomes visible.

The factors every California wildfire rating plan must reflect

Subdivision (d) makes some factors mandatory. No insurer may use a wildfire rating plan that does not take them into account, and the rate offered must be based in part on the reduced risk each one produces where it applies. The table lists them with the proof that tends to carry weight in an appeal. The evidence column is this desk's practical suggestion, not a requirement of the regulation; ask your insurer what it accepts.

The California Department of Insurance groups the same actions under its Safer from Wildfires framework, at three levels: the structure, the immediate surroundings, and the whole community. Its FAQ notes that many are low-cost or do-it-yourself projects, such as removing combustible materials five feet from the house or installing ember-resistant vents, and that larger items such as a fire-rated roof or dual pane windows can be timed to a replacement that was coming anyway.

Subdivision (e) lets insurers add optional factors they can show are substantially related to wildfire loss: fuel near the building, slope, access for firefighting equipment, aspect (the direction the slope faces), structural characteristics, wind, and other mitigation recommended by fire safety agencies. Several of those are fixed features of the lot. If your explanation leans on slope or access, an appeal built on mitigation photographs may move the score less than you hope, and it is better to know that before the renewal date than after it.

Filing the appeal: the clock and the letter

Subdivision (i) gives a policyholder or applicant who disagrees with the score the right to appeal it, orally or in writing, directly to the insurer, and requires the insurer to tell you about that right every time it provides a score. Once you appeal, the insurer must acknowledge receipt in writing within 10 calendar days and respond in writing with a reconsideration and decision within 30 calendar days. If you work through a broker or the insurer's agent, subdivision (j) lets you appeal to them; they must forward it to the insurer within five calendar days, and the insurer must acknowledge within five calendar days of receiving it and decide within 30.

Even though an oral appeal is allowed, send it in writing, and keep proof of the date. A written appeal fixes the start of the clock and leaves no doubt about what you asked. A useful appeal letter carries six things:

1. Your name, the property address, the policy or application number, and the date of the score notice you are appealing.
2. The sentence "I appeal the wildfire risk score provided on [date] under 10 CCR 2644.9(i)."
3. Each property feature the explanation relied on that you believe is wrong or out of date, one per paragraph.
4. For each, the evidence: dated photographs, invoices, permits, an inspection report.
5. Any mandatory factor from subdivision (d) that applies to your property and that the explanation did not credit.
6. A request for the revised score, the revised explanation under subdivision (k), and the premium effect, in writing.

If the appeal is denied

Subdivision (l) requires the insurer's response to tell you, in writing, that you may contact the Department of Insurance for assistance if you disagree with its reconsideration and decision, and to give you the department's toll-free consumer hotline and the web address of its Consumer Complaint Center. The department's September 2026 FAQ gives the hotline as 800-927-4357. On the department's request, the insurer must forward a copy of a denied appeal and its response. Subdivision (m) adds that nothing in the section limits your right to complain directly to the Commissioner at any time or to pursue any other remedy under state or federal law.

Keep the escalation narrow and factual. Send the department the score notice, the explanation, your appeal and evidence, and the insurer's decision, and name the specific item you believe the insurer got wrong: a feature it misread, a mandatory factor it did not credit, or an explanation item from subdivision (k) it never supplied. That is a dispute a regulator can check against the regulation.

When the score arrives with a nonrenewal

A score that comes with a nonrenewal notice, at least 75 days before the end date, raises two questions at once: can the score be corrected, and where will the house be insured if it cannot? Work both in parallel. File the appeal and the post-mitigation request with dated evidence, and start shopping on an identical specification the same week. Our nonrenewal guide turns the notice window into a plan, and the state notice rules show how much notice your state requires.

California adds a separate protection after a declared wildfire emergency. Insurance Code section 675.1(b)(1), as quoted in the department's Bulletin 2026-01 of January 9, 2026, says an insurer shall not cancel or refuse to renew a residential property policy for a property in any ZIP Code within or adjacent to the fire perimeter, for one year after the declaration of a state of emergency, based solely on the fact that the insured structure is located in an area in which a wildfire has occurred. The department issues a bulletin listing the ZIP Codes for each emergency; Bulletin 2026-01 covered the Gifford Fire ZIP Codes in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties for one year from December 23, 2025. The moratorium is about cancellations and nonrenewals; it does not freeze a score or a premium, so the appeal steps on this page still apply inside a moratorium area.

If no regular insurer will write the home, the California FAIR Plan is the market of last resort. The department's FAQ says the FAIR Plan will also offer Safer from Wildfires discounts, through a licensed broker registered to sell FAIR Plan coverage. Our FAIR plan guide explains the coverage gap between a fire-only FAIR policy and a full homeowners policy, and the second policy that fills it.

Score notices and appeals that go sideways

Appealing without the explanation. An appeal against a bare number is guesswork. Ask for the full subdivision (k) explanation first if you do not have it, then appeal the specific features it names.

Waiting for renewal to report work. The department's FAQ says to contact the insurer or agent after completing a mitigation action, that you may need to provide proof or an inspection may be required, and that the premium savings would be reflected at the start of the next policy period. Work reported the week before renewal may land in the next period, not this one.

Areas you do not control. The 30-foot rule on combustible structures credits removal from as much of the area as you control. A neighbor's shed within 30 feet is not your failure under that factor, and saying so with a site sketch is a fair point in an appeal.

Expecting the same discount everywhere. The department's FAQ is direct about this: discounts depend in part on the property and the actions taken, different companies may offer different discounts, and companies submit their discounts separately. A discount figure from one insurer is not a promise from another. The regulation's per-measure dollar figure, in writing, is the number to compare.

Treating a score as the whole premium. A corrected score changes one input. The premium also reflects the dwelling limit, the roof, the deductible and the market. If your premium rose for reasons beyond wildfire, our renewal increase decoder separates the drivers.

Oregon readers looking for an appeal right. SB 82 gives you a detailed notice, not a statutory appeal clock. The notice still tells you what the insurer relied on, which is what any challenge needs. Take that notice, your evidence, and any disagreement to the insurer in writing, then to the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation.

This guide is part of our catastrophe and market guides; every guide on the site is listed on the main guides page.

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