State Farm will discontinue coverage for 72,000 houses and apartments in California starting this summer, the insurance giant said this week, nine months after announcing it would not issue new home policies in the state
The Illinois-based company, California’s largest insurer, cited soaring costs, the increasing risk of catastrophes like wildfires and outdated regulations as reasons it won’t renew the policies on 30,000 houses and 42,000 apartments, the Bay Area News Group reported Thursday.
So much of this could be fixed by forcing electric companies to update their infrastructure and force them to bury power lines.
Or they should force the power company to pay the full cost of every home damaged by their outdated power lines triggering fires.
It’s not that simple. Yes, power lines do start a lot of fires, but climate change induced drought is the main cause of the scale and frequency of wildfires in California. If the conditions are right it’s only a matter of time until something sets it off.