Podcast Episode 17 - The Insurance Dilemma Part 2: Defining Risk

In this second installment of our series “The Insurance Dilemma”, Living With Fire‘s Megan Kay (Program Manager) and Spencer Eusden (Curriculum Specialist) sit down with Frank Frievalt to explore different perspectives on wildfire risk. Frank is the Director of the WUI (Wildland Urban Interface) Institute at Cal Poly who previously worked as a firefighter and fire chief. He explains what risk means to fire practitioners versus the insurance industry, and how wildfire conflagrations are impacting firefighting and insurance.

For full episode details including the transcript, visit https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1819551/episodes/17835392-the-insurance-dilemma-part-2-defining-risk

When it comes to reducing wildfire risk, Frank talks about how fire scientists are looking at ways to slow down and disrupt fire spread in the three pathways seen in the WUI: vegetation to vegetation, vegetation to structure, and structure to structure. He then shares the factors that are leading to conflagration losses and how this has changed the realities for the insurance industry’s financial risk. He highlights the disconnect between insurance agencies and homeowners and shares that he and many others are working to figure out how to get the right data into the hands of the insurers to “reconcile actual risk on the ground [and] facts on the ground, with how we price risk transfer.”

Frank ends by sharing the top way homeowners can protect their homes: working together as a community to ensure that they and their neighbors have adequate defensible space and hardened homes.

Here are Frank’s tips for homeowners:

• Follow the IBHS prepared home standards for home hardening and defensible space:

https://wildfireprepared.org/wp-content/uploads/WFPH-Technical-Standard.pdf

• Reach out to your local fire agency if you have any questions.
• When looking at home insurance, work with your insurance agent and shop around if you feel stuck.

For more information about the WUI Institute and their current projects, visit

https://fire.calpoly.edu/

Watch Frank’s talk to the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_VyuwzJ5N0

Find Living With Fire’s Defensible Space and Wildfire Home Retrofit Guides at https://www.livingwithfire.org/resources/publications/