I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 550
To require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study regarding
insurance coverage for damages from wildfires, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY16, 2025
Ms. W
ATERS(for herself and Mr. SHERMAN) introduced the following bill;
which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services
A BILL
To require the Government Accountability Office to conduct
a study regarding insurance coverage for damages from
wildfires, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Wildfire Insurance 4
Coverage Study Act of 2025’’. 5
SEC. 2. GAO STUDY REGARDING INSURANCE FOR WILDFIRE 6
DAMAGE. 7
(a) S
TUDY.—The Comptroller General of the United 8
States, in consultation with the Director of the Federal 9
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Insurance Office and State insurance regulators, shall 1
conduct a study to analyze and determine the following: 2
(1) R
ISK ASSESSMENT.—The extent and nature 3
of wildfire risk in the United States, including— 4
(A) identifying trends in declarations for 5
wildfires under the Fire Management Assist-6
ance grant program under section 420 of the 7
Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emer-8
gency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5187), with 9
respect to geography, costs, probability, and 10
frequency of wildfire disasters; 11
(B) identifying mitigation practices that 12
would assist in reducing costs and risks for in-13
surance policies covering damages from 14
wildfires; 15
(C) identifying existing programs of the 16
Federal Government and State governments 17
that measure wildfire risk and assess their ef-18
fectiveness in forecasting wildfire events and in-19
forming wildfire response; and 20
(D) analyzing and assessing the need for a 21
national map for measuring and quantifying 22
wildfire risk. 23
(2) E
XISTING STATE OF COVERAGE .—With re-24
spect to the existing state of homeowners insurance 25
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coverage and commercial property insurance cov-1
erage for damage from wildfires in the United 2
States— 3
(A) the extent to which private insurers 4
have, during the 10-year period ending on the 5
date of the enactment of this Act, adjusted 6
rates, policyholder cost-sharing provisions, or 7
both for such coverage (after adjusting for in-8
flation) and the geographic areas in which ad-9
justed rates, policyholder cost-sharing, or both 10
have increased; 11
(B) the extent to which private insurers 12
have, during the 10-year period ending on the 13
date of the enactment of this Act, declined to 14
renew policies for such coverages and the geo-15
graphic areas to which such declinations ap-16
plied; 17
(C) the events and economic factors that 18
have contributed to any such increased rates 19
and declinations to renew policies; 20
(D) in cases in which private insurers have 21
curtailed their overall wildfire exposure, the ex-22
tent to which homeowners insurance coverage 23
and commercial property coverage were termi-24
nated altogether and the extent to which such 25
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coverages are still offered but with coverage for 1
damage from wildfires excluded; and 2
(E) the extent to which, and circumstances 3
under which, private insurers are continuing to 4
provide coverage for damage from wildfires— 5
(i) in general; 6
(ii) subject to a condition that mitiga-7
tion activities are taken, such as hardening 8
of properties and landscaping against 9
wildfires, by property owners, State or 10
local governments, park or forest authori-11
ties, or other land management authorities; 12
and 13
(iii) subject to any other conditions. 14
(3) R
EGULATORY RESPONSES .—With respect to 15
actions taken by State insurance regulatory agencies 16
in response to increased premium rates, policyholder 17
cost-sharing, or both for coverage for damage from 18
wildfires or exclusion of such coverage from home-19
owners insurance policies— 20
(A) the extent to which States have lever-21
aged their respective authorities to regulate rate 22
increases; 23
(B) the extent to which States have en-24
acted any moratoria on such rate and policy-25
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•HR 550 IH
holder cost-sharing increases or exclusions and 1
on non-renewals; 2
(C) the extent to which States require 3
homeowners insurance coverage to include cov-4
erage for damage from wildfires or make sales 5
of homeowners insurance coverage contingent 6
on the sale, underwriting, or financing of sepa-7
rate wildfire coverage in the State; 8
(D) the extent to which States have estab-9
lished State residual market insurance entities, 10
reinsurance programs, or similar mechanisms 11
for coverage of damages from wildfires; 12
(E) any other actions States or localities 13
have taken in response to increased premium 14
rates, policyholder cost-sharing, or both for cov-15
erage for damage from wildfires or exclusion of 16
such coverage from homeowners policies, includ-17
ing forestry and wildfire management policies 18
and subsidies for premiums and cost-sharing 19
for wildfire coverage; 20
(F) the effects of actions taken by States 21
on the availability, coverage level, and afford-22
ability of homeowners insurance coverage; and 23
(G) the effectiveness and sustainability of 24
such actions taken by States. 25
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(4) CHALLENGES IN UNDERWRITING WILDFIRE 1
RISK.—With respect to the challenges faced by pri-2
vate insurers underwriting wildfire risk, what is or 3
are— 4
(A) the correlated risks and the extent of 5
such risks; 6
(B) the factors affecting the extent of pri-7
vate insurers’ ability to estimate magnitude of 8
future likelihood of wildfires and of expected 9
damages from wildfires; 10
(C) the effects of the need to increase more 11
affordable housing options, which may con-12
tribute to increased homebuilding in more re-13
mote, heavily-wooded areas with higher wildfire 14
risk; 15
(D) the potential for wildfire losses suffi-16
ciently large to jeopardize insurers’ solvency; 17
(E) the extent to which, and areas in 18
which, risk-adjusted market premiums for wild-19
fire risk limit affordability or availability of cov-20
erage for consumers; 21
(F) the effects of various existing and po-22
tential State and Federal Government responses 23
to help address these challenges and mitigate 24
wildfire risk, including actions such as— 25
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(i) improved forest management poli-1
cies; 2
(ii) improved data to estimate risk; 3
(iii) relocating homeowners from wild-4
fire zones; 5
(iv) offsetting a portion of insurers’ 6
charged risk-adjusted premiums with 7
means-tested government affordability pro-8
grams for lower income homeowners; 9
(v) encouraging the increased use of 10
private reinsurance and other risk-sharing 11
mechanisms by insurers to better diversify 12
wildfire risk; and 13
(vi) developing programs that offset 14
the costs of wildfire risk for consumers and 15
industry; 16
(G) the available policy responses if private 17
insurers exit the wildfire coverage market and 18
the potential advantages and disadvantages of 19
each such response; 20
(H) the effects of the availability and af-21
fordability of wildfire coverage, policyholder 22
cost-sharing, or both, on— 23
(i) local communities that are dis-24
proportionately vulnerable to wildfires, in-25
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cluding on low- or moderate-income prop-1
erty owners and small businesses; 2
(ii) rebuilding in communities pre-3
viously damaged by wildfires; 4
(iii) the availability and affordability 5
of housing supply; and 6
(iv) the demand for wildfire insurance 7
coverage by property owners; 8
(I) the effects of potential State prohibi-9
tions on termination of policies due to wildfire 10
claims on insurer solvency; and 11
(J) the manner in which private insurers 12
are modeling or estimating future wildfire risk. 13
(b) R
EPORT.—Not later than the expiration of the 14
12-month period beginning on the date of the enactment 15
of this Act, the Comptroller General shall submit to the 16
Congress a report identifying the findings and conclusions 17
of the study conducted pursuant to subsection (a). 18
Æ
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