Fire insurance rates are skyrocketing in Monterey County

Home insurance rates are skyrocketing in areas on the Central Coast, as fire danger increases across the state.

Agents say prices started to rise in January, and some customers are being asked to pay two to six times more than the average, while some companies are even dropping customers altogether.

Wildfires have the ability to swallow homes within minutes. Just last year, the Camp Fire burned more than 150,000 acres and cost the state billions. In 2016, the Soberanes Fire hit the Central Coast, devastating Monterey County.

With the increasing fire danger, insurance rates are going through the roof, and companies are even dropping customers in high risk areas.

“I was dropped by our old company, and we had to pick up a new company, and my insurance company told me it was due to the fires in Big Sur. And my particular area where I live, they said it was a big fire area,” says Carmel resident, Dylan Tescher.

Tescher said his rate might have doubled, but others are seeing even bigger jumps, up to six times the average amount.

“People are having trouble finding an insurance that they can afford,” says Taylor Greene with HUB International.

Greene works as an insurance broker in Monterey, and says this is the worst spike she’s seen since being in the business.

“We have people going from a low premium of about a thousand dollars to about five or six thousand dollars. We had someone who had a premium of about seven thousand dollars, and they went up to 20 thousand dollars,” says Greene.

In Monterey County, the highest fire insurance rates are in Big Sur, Carmel Valley, and Carmel-by-the-sea. Regardless of the higher prices, when you’re living in a fire prone state such as California, “it is very important to have fire insurance,” says Greene.