Wildfires

​​Key provisions include:

• Requiring more comprehensive, actionable information in consumer notices of cancellation, nonrenewal, and premium increase.
• Requiring insurers to consider home hardening and defensible space efforts in rating and underwriting; while providing flexibility in how this consideration is reflected in an insurer’s decisions.
• Requiring extended timelines for rebuilding and contents replacement; allowing homeowners at least 24 months to repair, rebuild, or replace damaged or lost property related to a fire during certain types of declared emergencies.
• Prohibiting the use of the state wildfire risk map for rating and underwriting

Additionally, there was a nonlegislative component to this bill – the FAIR Plan, insurer of last resort in Oregon, adopted DFR’s proposal to increase residential plan coverage limits from $400,000 to $600,000 and commercial property plan coverage limits from $700,000 to $1 million.

​​This bill provides more remedies for wildfire victims.

• House Bill 2982 requires insurers to offer a minimum of 70 percent of coverage that an insured has previously purchased for contents, without simultaneously requiring an inventory document, if the content loss occurs from a major disaster.
• This bill also requires insurers to notify the insured that additional benefits may be available if the insured submits inventory documentation.
• Insurers are further required to disclose their methodology for depreciating insured property under certain circumstances, and to make payments for specified covered costs within certain time frames.
  

• ​​Focused on connecting wildfire mitigation with insurance affordability and availability.
  
• Supports an evidence-based approach, as the goal is to better understand which mitigation measures reduce wildfire risk and how those reductions can translate into insurance underwriting, availability, and actuarially supported pricing.
  
• The regulatory framework is already in place in the Insurance Code to require carriers to recognize this work, and the Oregon State Fire Marshal and the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety are working together to arrive at those conclusions.
  

• ​​Detailed notice requirement is triggered by:

• Renewal of a policy
• Premium increase
• Policyholder’s written request

• The content must be clear and reasonable in nontechnical language, and include up to four significant factors contributing to the increase.
  
• The insurance policy renewal must include a prominent statement about the right to request an explanation.
  
• Effective Sept. 1, 2026.
  

• ​​Major wildfire funding and resilience package intended to create more stable, ongoing funding for wildfire prevention, mitigation, preparedness, and response.
• Established two specialized mitigation funds in response to recommendations of the Fire 35 workgroup:
  • Landscape Resiliency Fund: Receives one-third of nicotine tax revenue and 6.7 percent of rainy-day fund interest allocation for landscape-level wildfire risk reduction projects, including forest management, prescribed burns, and hazardous fuel reduction across large areas.
    
  • Community Risk Reduction Fund: Receives two-thirds of nicotine tax revenue and 13.3 percent of rainy-day fund interest allocation for community-level wildfire mitigation, including defensible space, home hardening, and evacuation planning at the neighborhood level.
    

​​The bill mandates the division produce an annual report due to the Oregon Legislature each December on:

• The feasibility and cost of a state-operated reinsurance program to stabilize and reduce insurance premiums of property and liability insurance for affordable housing as defined in ORS 197A.445, homeowners, single family/multifamily/high density living dwellings, and other residences in Oregon, and any additional insurance coverages needed by affordable housing providers/operators.
• An evaluation of alternative insurance mechanisms, including claims capture systems and risk pooling.
• A survey of existing insurance products in the admitted market, surplus lines, and the Oregon FAIR Plan Association, including a ZIP code-level analysis of coverage availability and affordability.

​​​The Wildfire Programs Advisory Council​ continues to make recommendations as to what can be done across the enterprise to improve insurability in the state by looking across landscape, community, and parcel-level solutions.​

​​After Oregon’s devastating wildfire season in 2020, the Legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 762 in 2021 to improve wildfire preparedness and resilience. One of the bill's initiatives called for the development of a statewide wildfire hazard map by the Oregon Department of Forestry and Oregon State University. The map was intended to identify areas of wildfire hazard, based on different factors, to help guide state and local mitigation efforts.

In 2023, the Legislature passed SB 82, which, among other things, prohibited insurers from using the wildfire hazard map to cancel, nonrenew, or increase premiums of a homeowners insurance policy. The bill was partially a response to concerns about the map’s effect on insurance.

​In 2025, the Legislature passed SB 83, which repealed the state wildfire hazard map and associated state level regulatory requirements for defensible space and home hardening – replacing this with statewide codes for consideration of local adoption. This repeal of the state map does not change the customary practice of insurers using their own proprietary models when making insurance decisions. 

Although the state map is no longer in effect, wildfire risk is still a very important consideration for insurers, homeowners, and communities.