Liberty Mutual clarifies Calif. fire insurance pullback
Company spokesperson: ‘We continue to offer dwelling fire coverage under our Safeco Insurance brand.’
Roughly 17,000 Liberty Mutual customers in California will lose their fire insurance, a company spokesperson has confirmed with PropertyCasualty360.com.
“This is related to a filing that dates back to 2023; non-renewals of impacted California customers began last fall and will conclude in November,” he said.
Subsidiary Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company is in the process of canceling dwelling fire insurance for the policyholders, after the company stopped writing the policies under the brand in California (and other states) in September 2023.
“We continue to offer dwelling fire coverage in California under our Safeco Insurance brand,” the spokesperson said.
“The decision is not related to wildfire risk; these policies are supported by older systems platforms that we are retiring companywide,” he added. “These impacted policies represent approximately 1% of our overall Liberty Mutual personal lines business in California.”
Dwelling fire insurance is typically purchased for structures like rentals, vacation homes or investment properties; generally properties are not the policyholder’s chief residence.
Meanwhile, more than 751,327 acres in California have already been burned by 4,613 wildfires in 2024. The state saw a record 4,397,809 acres destroyed by wildfires in 2020.
With wildfire totals and damages on the rise, communities can implement mitigation measures to reduce some of the risk. These measures include:
- Restricting development in wildfire-urban interface (WUI) areas to reduce the loss of property and life if a fire occurs;
- Performing proper maintenance of underbrush to reduce burnable vegetation;
- Building with flame retardant materials;
- Maintaining safe perimeters around buildings that are free of flammable materials;
- Upgrading utility poles and maintaining the vegetation around power lines to prevent fires caused by electricity, and to protect the utilities’ functions during a wildfire; and
- Reducing CO2 emissions to address climate change that is driving the increase in destructive wildfires.
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