Experts: Austin's proposed wildfire risk map unlikely to hike property insurance rates

Yahoo

09-04-2025

The Austin City Council is set to vote Thursday on a new and significantly expanded wildfire risk map that some local industry groups have opposed because they say it would increase building costs and potentially raise property insurance premiums.
While there is little disagreement that the proposed map would lead to higher building costs, experts say it's unlikely the map alone would lead to a hike in insurance rates – and that it could even lower them over time.
The Wildland-Urban Interface Code, known around City Hall as the WUI or WUIC, outlines minimum building requirements for new developments and property renovations 'to prevent ignition of and spread of wildfire,' according to the Austin Fire Department. That includes using fire-resistant materials for roofs and limiting kinds of vegetation near a building.
Assistant Fire Chief André de la Reza said it would be difficult to 'find someone whose house has been in a wildfire who would say these are bad ideas.'
The current WUI map puts 38% of the city at varying degrees of risk. It mostly consists of peripheral areas where building density is lower and structures are closer to plots of flammable grasslands, pastures and other types of wildlands. Properties fall into three risk categories – A, B or C – that are based on proximity to those flammable areas. Each has different mitigation requirements with Zone A, the riskiest, having the most stringent.
Under the proposed map, the percentage of the city considered at risk would increase to 51% because it would expand Zone C, the lowest risk zone.
That's because city officials want to update the WUI code to include properties within a half-mile of wildland plots larger than 40 acres. Under the current map, Zone C includes properties within 1.5 miles of flammable areas larger than 750 acres.
There's widespread agreement that the proposed map would lead to cost increases for developers who want to build in the expanded areas of the map because fire-resistant materials are more expensive.
'When you're having to use either concrete wood or hardened wood, those items cost more,' said Taylor Jackson, CEO of the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin, which has called on the City Council to hold off on adopting the new map so it can explore better alternatives. 'There are some more significant options that would have more impact on wildfire prevention than just updating a code.'
Jackson and representatives from other local industry groups have also voiced concerns about the effect a new map could have on property insurance premiums.
But several experts told the American-Statesman that it's unlikely the map would affect rates.
Karen Collins, vice president of property and environmental at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said insurers typically don't rely on this type of risk map because they aren't updated frequently enough to use them to calculate rates. Rather, she said they are primarily designed to set standards for building and land-use codes over a multiyear period.
'Companies need a much faster, more frequent, refresh,' Collins said.
She pointed to a 2022 survey of insurance providers taken in Oregon after backlash over a proposed statewide risk map that asked whether they would use the map to set rates. All, in legally binding answers, said no.
Eric Macomber, a wildfire legal fellow at Stanford University Law School, said that while public risk maps could be included as part of risk calculations, the models that insurers use to set rates already use many of the same details the maps are based on.
'This means that the release of public maps based on the same underlying information probably will not have a dramatic effect on premiums or insurance availability,' he wrote in an email.
In fact, he said 'it's conceivable that they could work to stabilize or even lower premiums' in the long term because the new building requirements would reduce risk.
Florida State University professor Charles Nyce, an expert in risk management and insurance, agreed that requiring fire mitigation efforts for new developments would likely have a net-positive effect even though construction costs would rise in the short term.
But just because the proposed WUI map is unlikely to drive up insurance premiums doesn't mean that they won't increase for other reasons.
'In recent years, inflation in the cost of building materials and construction labor, higher reinsurance costs, and the frequency and size of weather events has added to insurance costs,' Ben Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Insurance, said in a written statement.
Data from the department show that average home insurance premiums in Texas jumped to $2,803 in 2023 from $1,961 in 2019.
'Texas, by far, has had more disasters than any other state,' said Collins, the insurance association vice president. 'The more that consumers can take steps to reduce the risk, the better position they are going to put themselves in for insurance access and costs.'
Austin Fire Department officials urge property owners to make use of the city's free 'Structural Ignition Zone Evaluations' for personalized guidance on how to harden a property to diminish wildfire risks.
To request an evaluation, you can fill out an interest form online. You can also call the Fire Department's nonemergency line at 512-974-0130.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin's proposed wildfire risk map unlikely to raise insurance rates