What Is a High Fire Risk Score for Home Insurance?
There's no single number. Insurers set their own cutoff, often around the top third of the scale, where non-renewal becomes likely.
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Where the score comes from
The score isn't from your insurer. A separate company models wildfire risk using your property's location, the vegetation around it, slope, and local fire history, then sells that score to insurers. Your declarations page won't show it, but the non-renewal letter is often the result of it.
Why this house, this year
Fire models get updated as wildfires move and conditions change. A house that scored fine two years ago can score high now even with no changes to the property itself. That's why some non-renewals land on homeowners who've never filed a claim.
What the letter actually means
A non-renewal tied to fire risk usually isn't about you or your history. It means the insurer decided your area crossed their threshold for wildfire exposure. Check the letter for the stated reason. It may name brush, slope, or distance from a fire station rather than anything you did.
Your path back to coverage
Standard insurers pulling out of high-risk areas pushes homeowners toward surplus lines carriers or the state's FAIR Plan, both usually pricier with less coverage. Clearing brush, upgrading roofing material, or adding defensible space around the house can sometimes lower the score enough to matter at the next renewal.
One insurer's fire model isn't the only one. Another company may weigh your defensible space, roofing material, or distance from brush differently and land you well under their cutoff, even in the same high-risk area. Since the score is bought from a third party, not calculated by the insurer itself, comparing several is the only way to find out who still wants to write your house.
Can you find out your own score and dispute it
Some of the companies that build these wildfire models, like Verisk or CoreLogic, let homeowners request their own property's score and the factors behind it. It's not automatic and it's not always free, but if you're trying to understand why your house got flagged, going to the source is more useful than guessing from the non-renewal letter alone. Your insurer may also be able to tell you which vendor's model they used, even if they won't share the number itself.
Disputing a score is possible but limited. If the model has your property wrong, counting a wood roof you replaced years ago, or placing your defensible space incorrectly, you can usually submit corrected information and ask for a rescore. Insurers don't always act on this quickly, and a rescore in your favor doesn't guarantee reinstatement with the same company. But it matters for the next application, since a corrected score follows you to other insurers pulling from the same data.
What you can't dispute is the model's broader inputs, things like slope, vegetation density across the whole area, or proximity to wildland. Those are measured at the landscape level, not the parcel level, and no amount of paperwork changes a hillside's grade or how close the nearest brush is. If the score is high mainly because of where the house sits rather than anything on the property itself, the more realistic path is mitigation work that shows up in the next model update, not a dispute this year.
Keep records either way. Photos of cleared brush, receipts for a new roof, documentation of an ember-resistant vent retrofit. Some states now require insurers to factor in mitigation credits when they price wildfire risk, and having proof ready speeds up both a rescore request and a new application somewhere else.
Does the FAIR Plan cost more than regular insurance
The FAIR Plan exists because standard insurers won't write certain properties, so it's priced for that reality. Premiums often run well above what the same house would have cost through a standard carrier before the market tightened in that area. Coverage is also narrower. Most FAIR Plans only cover the dwelling itself. Liability and personal belongings usually aren't included, so homeowners typically need a separate policy to fill those gaps. That second policy is another bill on top of the FAIR Plan premium, not a replacement for it.
The separate policy is sometimes called a wrap or a diff-in-conditions policy. It covers what the FAIR Plan leaves out, mainly liability and personal property. Finding an insurer willing to write one can take some searching, since not every company offers wraps in high-risk fire areas. Most states with active FAIR Plans have at least a few insurers that specialize in this pairing, and an agent familiar with the local market usually knows which ones.
The FAIR Plan is meant to be temporary, not a long-term home for a house. State regulations generally require its rates to stay comparable to the standard market, but in practice the gap can still be significant once the wrap policy gets added in. Homeowners who do mitigation work, like clearing brush or replacing a roof, often check back with standard insurers each year to see if anything has changed. That's typically how a house moves off the FAIR Plan and back into standard coverage.
Lenders generally accept FAIR Plan coverage for mortgage purposes, since it satisfies the requirement to carry insurance on the property. It's still worth confirming directly with the loan servicer, since requirements vary by lender. Some want proof of the wrap policy too, because a dwelling-only policy may not meet the full insurance requirement written into the loan agreement. Getting that confirmation early avoids a scramble later if the lender flags the gap.
Before the deadline on your letter
Pull your non-renewal letter and check the stated reason, then gather any proof of brush clearing, roof updates, or defensible space work. Compare a few insurers before that date. One company's fire model isn't every company's fire model.
