Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood Offers Resilience, Insurance Benefits

Forbes

2 days ago

The nation's first Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood is located in Escondido, California, a suburb of ... More San Diego.
A great kitchen! Great schools! Great location! These have all been highly sought-after attributes by prospective homebuyers for decades. Fire resilience? That attribute is new, sparked by recent wildfires across the country – especially the devastating blazes in Los Angeles this past January – and insurance companies cancelling policies for high risk regions. A new Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood program from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, building on its successful Wildfire Prepared Home program, is betting that fire resilience will be an important new attribute for home buyers. The nation'sfirst certified community, KB Home's Dixon Trail, is located in Escondido, California, a suburb 45 miles northeast of San Diego. The latest 2025 Cal Fire map puts the upscale 64-home single family development in a high risk zone. So it's not surprising that the first feature mentioned on the Dixon Trail website is 'Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood.'
'We view this as an important research and development project to better understand the benefits,' shares Steve Ruffner, KB Home Coastal's regional general manager. Dixon Trail will serve as a model for the company's wildfire mitigation efforts, he added. Ruffner's team saw a demonstration of the WPH fire resilience features at a 2024 conference, which led to conversations about bringing those attributes to an entire KB Home community. Dixon Trail had just broken ground at the time, 'so timing and location made it an ideal choice for this pilot program,' he notes.
The certified neighborhood program had just been finalized, so that Dixon Trail was the first community building to that standard, notes an IBHS spokesperson. 'What we see in Escondido at the Dixon Trail development with KB Home is what we need to see replicated across the West. When new construction is occurring, we need to build homes that are survivable and insurable. Wildfire Prepared Home and Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood are exactly the pathway to those ends,' declares Roy Wright, IBHS' CEO. The trade organization is getting inquiries from other builders and developers to potentially get their neighborhoods certified.
How does a development qualify as a Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood? Only homes in California and Oregon are currently eligible for the designation, though other states will be added soon, an IBHS spokesperson says. All homes must be spaced a minimum of 10 feet apart, have a Class A roof, have a homeowners association and build each residence to Wildfire Prepared Home standards. (Depending on the neighborhood's location, it will require Plus or Basic levels for the individual homes.)
'KB Homes worked closely with IBHS to pre-designate the homes in that community based on the model designs and landscaping,' notes Ivan O'Neill, a Sonoma County-based WPH certification reviewer and wildland firefighter. 'Once homeowners purchase the home, they will be required in the HOA CC&Rs to get the designation, and it's all set up for them to create an account and get it done,' O'Neill explains.
These are the criteria for getting Wildfire Prepared Home certified to Basic or Plus levels.
In addition to the peace of mind in having a home built to greater fire resilience than most resale homes and a community planned on that basis, there are insurance benefits for WPH owners in California. The state mandates discounts for specific fire resilience features and requires carriers in the state to advise homeowners of their property's wildfire risk score.
'To drive forward wildfire safety, the Department of Insurance created the nation's first insurance discount program for mitigation actions called Safer from Wildfires,' comments CDI's deputy insurance commissioner Michael Stoller. WPH mirrors the state program's criteria in many important ways, he notes, though it is separate. Insurance companies can provide added discounts beyond the state's requirements, he says. Some of them are doing exactly that for the IBHS programs.
State Farm provides the state required discounts, and an additional discount for both WPH levels, a spokesperson shares. 'Depending on the combination of discounts a customer qualifies for, the total maximum wildfire mitigation discount a customer can receive for their homeowners policy in California is between 6.3% and 10.1%.'
'Generally, Farmers customers in California are eligible for discounts of up to 8% on their wildfire peril premium, depending on the number and types of risk mitigation measures implemented and the characteristics of the property. An inspection arranged through the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) is one way that customers may validate the specific measures which have been successfully implemented and may qualify for a discount,' notes a spokesperson from that carrier.
'We've proposed discounts of up to 39% for IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home Plus (applies only to the wildfire peril premium) in our pending rate filing with the California Department of Insurance,' comments an executive with Mercury Insurance. 'We don't know when that will be approved, however, so there is no timeline of when these will be available to Mercury customers and California consumers.'
Another challenge for California homeowners is policy cancellations. Thousands occurred in 2024, just months before the devastating LA fires. These impacted both individual owners and their homeowner associations. Many scrambled to find new coverage, often with much higher premiums and deductibles.
Mercury also notes, 'Homes that have been certified as a Wildfire Prepared Home or Wildfire Prepared Home Plus are excellent risks and it's highly likely that Mercury would renew these customers. Other factors are also considered when offering renewals, but we believe homes that achieve these designations are significantly better wildfire risks and would therefore be much more likely to be renewed.'
'I think this is the future of most (or all) new housing developments in California that are located on the outskirts of existing communities,' O'Neill predicts. The cost difference is minimal when planned ahead, he points out. 'Developers need to follow KB Homes' lead and build to the WPH Plus level standard from the beginning and ensure that their future homebuyers will have access to more insurance options.'
***Note: All interviews were conducted by email in May 2025.