California town nearly destroyed by wildfire rebuilding with unique approach to insurance crisis​on February 15, 2025 at 8:26 am

PARADISE, Calif. (KABC) — When rebuilding efforts begins in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, property owners will face many challenges. One of them will be finding insurance.

Due to the threat of wildfires, many property owners in California are dealing with rising home insurance rates, or seeing their policies canceled.

In the Northern California town of Paradise, residents are rebuilding using a unique approach to the insurance crisis. The town was nearly destroyed by 2018’s Camp Fire – the state’s most destructive wildfire.

The estimated value of homes lost in the Eaton and Palisades fires is almost $30 billion, which will surely add to the two overwhelming problems for homeowners wanting fire insurance in California: availability and affordability.

“How do you change the risk profile of these communities? How do you help homeowners think differently? How can we educate them?” said Victor Joseph, the president and COO of Mercury Insurance. “How can we be a productive participant in moving things forward to a better future? And that’s really what we’re focused on doing right now.”

RELATED: ‘Build back safer’ regulations guide Paradise’s recovery after fire

Just over six years after the catastrophic Camp Fire leveled the town of Paradise, homeowners and community leaders are abiding by a series of “build back safer” regulations aimed at protecting residents and structures.

California-based Mercury Insurance has offices in Brea, but Joseph personally traveled to Paradise several times to see firsthand what the township has done to reduce their future fire risk after the Camp Fire and make fire insurance is a probability, not a possibility.

“Mercury visited me, and they looked at what I built and the term they used was, ‘This is a no-brainer. We’ll write you a policy,'” Paradise resident Gary Ledbetter told Eyewitness News.

After losing 90% of their homes in 2018, Paradise became the first and only city in the U.S. to require all new homes meet Wildfire Prepared Home standards, but in spite of that designation, Casey Taylor was still paying $8,000 a year for fire insurance. She says that changed after Mercury visited her home and offered a policy for a fraction of that.

“That’s the message we’re trying to make sure that the L.A. people hear when they rebuild. You have to rebuild resilient with hardened structures if you’re ever gonna think about being insured,” Taylor said.

“The town deserves a lot of credit for that, and insurance companies have to look at that, they have to recognize that,” Joseph said. “We have to support that however we can.”

The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety is independent of the insurance industry and their scientific approach to preventing fire has been embraced by Paradise. The hope is that by using their standards, the community is protected as a whole, and more insurers will begin offering policies.

RELATED: Six years after the Camp Fire, Paradise residents continue their rebuilding efforts

Residents reflect on lessons learned while rebuilding after the devastating Camp Fire nearly wiped Paradise off the map more than six years ago.

Steve Hawks, the senior director for wildfire at IBHS, explained to Eyewitness News why a community effort is so important.

“If I do it and then you don’t and our homes are right next to each other, then in the next fire your home might ignite and then expose mine to that fire, and I lose my house anyway,” Hawks said.

“We have to prepare communities at large, not just individual homes scattered throughout the community,” Hawks added. “It’s a community-wide effort.”

IBHS research shows the cost of building a home with fire resilience is roughly 3-5% more expensive than a traditional build. But there are also alternative building materials like a home in Paradise with walls of hay that are incredibly safe from fire, but unfamiliar to insurers.

“There’s no oxygen in the walls once the plaster goes around the bales and it doesn’t burn,” explained Eric Brzescinski, who is building the home.

Joseph loves learning about the new ways to build safely.

“It really behooves us to be curious about this, to get into the field and learn more and to want to solve this problem because if you look longer term and you just assume for a moment that things are going to continue this way or things might even get worse, we have to find whatever we can do to shift into a different direction that is better ultimately for the consumers,” Joseph said.

Mercury’s plan is to offer more policies in Paradise, but they want other companies there as well to share the risk – something the township wants as well after all they’ve done to lower that risk for everyone.

“These choices that we’ve made are now making our community not only an example but more insurable,” Jen Goodlin of Rebuild Paradise Foundation said.

“When there’s a big wind I sleep at night. When there’s a fire nearby, I sleep at night,” Ledbetter added. “My home is built to withstand the threat.”

And Joseph knows this is the way of the future.

“That’s how we’re going to beat wildfires, is we need to see more communities take a few pages out of their book where they can and adopt some of those standards, and then we’ll see a way out of this catastrophe that we’re facing across the state,” Joseph said.

The collaboration between Mercury and residents was at its core a desire for protection, but it’s also more than that. The industry and the residents in Paradise understand that without real change in how homes are built and in land management, it is predicted the land burned in California will increase by 52% between 2031-2050 – and that benefits no one.