Insurance Dilemma Part 3: 2025 Nevada Legislative Updates

For the third installment of our “Insurance Dilemma” series, we’re delving into the Nevada Assembly bills addressed wildfire impacts to insurance in the 2025 legislative session with Nevada Insurance Commissioner Ned Gaines and Elko Fire Chief Matt Petersen, who also serves as Nevada Fire Chiefs Association rural representative. Host Jenni Burr, Insurance Commissioner Gaines and Chief Petersen first talk about what wildfire-related impacts they’re seeing around the state when it comes to homeowners insurance, then shift to finding out what wildfire-related insurance bills were introduced in the 2025 Nevada Legislature session and wrap up with what’s ahead for the future.

For more full episode details including the transcript, visit

 https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1819551/episodes/18638277-insurance-dilemma-part-3-2025-nevada-legislative-updates

Here are tips shared in the episode:

·         When looking for an insurance plan, speak to an agent licensed in your state

·         Document your belongings in your home and how your home is built to ensure that you have enough coverage. Find out more at https://doi.nv.gov/Consumers/Homeowners-Insurance/Home-Inventory/ 

To learn more about the program’s partners visit:

·         Nevada Division of Insurance: doi.nv.gov/Consumers/Homeowners-Insurance 

·         Nevada Fire Chiefs Association: www.nvfirechf.org 

·         Living With Fire: www.livingwithfire.org 

Resource Links

·         Nevada Assembly Bill 376 www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/83rd2025/Bill/12518/Overview

·         Nevada Assembly Bill 437 www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/83rd2025/Bill/12643/Overview

·         IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home https://wildfireprepared.org/ 

Transcript

Matt Peterson: 0:00

You could treat your home, but if your neighbor doesn't treat their home, their home might catch yours on fire no matter how well your property is treated.

Ned Gaines: 0:07

If you build in a high wildfire area, knowing it's a high wildfire area, you know, there is the argument that you should take on more of the risks.

Jenni Burr: 0:17

Are you releasing those mitigation efforts having a significant impact on homeowners insurance here in Nevada, or is that something that is still to be determined? This is the living with fire podcast brought to you by the living with Fire Program at the University of Nevada, Reno extension. Hi. Welcome back to the Living With Fire podcast. I'm your host, Jenni Burr, Outreach Coordinator for the Living With Fire program. In this third installment of our insurance dilemma series, I talked to Nevada Insurance Commissioner Ned Gaines and Elko fire chief Matt Peterson, who also serves as the Nevada Fire Chiefs Association rural representative. We first talk about what wildfire related impacts they're seeing around the state when it comes to homeowners insurance, then we shift to finding out what fire related insurance bills were introduced in the 2025 Nevada legislature session, and we wrap up by hearing about what's ahead for the future. I learned a lot from their insights, and hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Let's jump in. All right, welcome back to the Living With Fire podcast. We're here today to talk about the 2025, Nevada legislature bills that relate to wildfire and how these bills fared in the legislative process. So can you each please tell us your name, your job, and a little about how your job intersects with insurance and wildfires.

Matt Peterson: 2:06

So my name is Matt Peterson. I'm the Elko County Fire Chief. I've been in fire for over 20 years of federal experience, volunteer experience and career experience now, and I'm currently now with Elko County Fire. I'm also the rural representative for Nevada fire chiefs. So pretty much everything outside of Carson and Vegas, I help represent some of the smaller departments and communities to Nevada fire chiefs, and Nevada fire chiefs has taken a bigger role trying to know just assist with insurance, defensible space, kind of anything related to fire and people's homes, people default to us as trying to be the experts. So we have to learn the insurance industry, learn how the power company functions. So we become jack of all trades and try to be masters of them. But we are not experts in that piece yet.

Jenni Burr: 2:56

And Ned, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself.

Ned Gaines: 2:59

My name is Ned Gaines. I am the Commissioner of Insurance with the Nevada Division of Insurance. We are tasked with regulating the insurance industry in the state. We are the chief insurance regulator. We have two primary missions. It's to protect the consumer in their dealings with the insurance industry, and also maintaining insurance solvency for the companies that are domiciled in Nevada. We are involved with wildfire because, you know, as part of our mission to protect consumers, we know people are being non renewed, and so we are involved in trying to help people do what they need to do in terms of mitigation, to lessen the chance that they will be non renewed, also to find some alternatives and to afford coverage so people maintain protection on their home.

Jenni Burr: 3:58

Great. So before we jump into the bills themselves, how are each of you seeing wildfire impacting Nevadans and their ability to get homeowners or renters insurance?

Ned Gaines: 4:10

So we are seeing an impact on consumers in two different ways. One is consumers who live in wildfire prone areas, especially in the Reno Tahoe area, because that is the one part of the state that is most heavily wooded. So the wildfire risk is highest there. They are starting to see non renewals based on where they're located, and you know, the increased risk of a wildfire threat. Also, the entirety of the state, they are seeing some increases in their overall premiums due to the increased wildfire risk, even though wildfire is limited to certain areas of the state. When a company is doing their rating program, it is based on the risk across the entire state. It's not individualized by section. So if there is an overall increase in a wildfire risk in a larger area, such as Reno Tahoe, people who live in, say, Elko Winnemucca, Las Vegas, they are still going to see a rise in their premiums as the insurers are trying to price and reserve for that potential wildfire event.

Jenni Burr: 5:35

And Ned, does that also like impact between states? So as other states are seeing increased wildfire risk, does that mean that Nevada could also be seeing increases in the cost of coverage based on, you know, what's happening in California or Colorado?

Ned Gaines: 5:51

No. Insurance rating is based on the state. So if a company, all companies are required to file their homeowners rates with my office. I have an actuarial team that reviews those and if a company tried to include losses from another state or an increased risk in another state, we would not allow them to include that in their rating filing, because it does have to be specific to Nevada.

Jenni Burr: 6:24

Good to know, thanks. And Matt, what are you seeing across the state when it comes to what people are telling you about their coverage?

Matt Peterson: 6:33

So right now, I think the process for us looks like when a homeowner is getting a letter from their insurance company saying, "Hey, we're dropping you due to wildfire risk". Normally, their first probably reaction is panic, and then their second phone call is us with the panic attached and how, "hey, I'm getting my insurance dropped. I can't maintain it". A lot of times, we'll go out, we'll get their address, we'll talk to them, we'll go out and do an inspection, take some photos, and we'll write a report that kind of says, or just a document that says: this is what our response is to this area. These are fuels, projects and mitigation that we've also done in that area. We see some success with that, not as much as we'd like, as much effort as we put into it, but a lot of companies don't understand the front end of what districts are doing, what communities are doing, and the insurance companies are taking that into full effect. They're, they're becoming more and more aware. And something that we've discovered over the last, I'd say, 12 to 24 months, is reinsurers have no idea about fuels mitigation. We've done presentations to large groups of reinsurers nationwide that this is fuels mitigation. We've shown them pictures, we brought them to projects, and the immediate reaction we get is we had no idea this occurred. We didn't know this was a real thing. We thought this was a conceptual thing that people just talked about. So we do see the panic and the success. We have not encountered anyone that we know, and this is just my world, so this isn't a blanket statement that hasn't been able to maintain their insurance or get new insurance from a new company. We've seen some spikes from folks and gotten reports, but no one's been dropped and not been able to get anything that we we know of

Jenni Burr: 8:29

That's good. Matt, what led the Nevada Fire Chiefs Association to get involved in insurance issues?

Matt Peterson: 8:37

So right, our risk mitigation and our risk reduction in communities is our largest driver of it. Like I said, the first thing they get is panic at home, and then their second phone call is panic to the fire districts and fire chiefs. So we're we become the default fixer, and so I think that that was our big driver for this. And right that, it does impact our economies locally. It's going to impact the state. It's going to impact mortgages, it's going to impact safety, all sorts of things. And so it's, it's not something we want to own, but we definitely want to be able to influence it in a positive way.

Ned Gaines: 9:15

So that, Matthew, when you're getting those phone calls, you know, I would ask, you know, refer them to my office as well. I have a consumer services department, and that is their job. We can go to bat for them. We're not always successful, but we can present the data, any information that the consumer has about litigation efforts that they've taken and then work with the company to see if there is a way we can keep their insurance coverage in place.

Jenni Burr: 9:49

That's great.

Matt Peterson: 9:50

Yeah, that's That's great. That's a great bit of information, and we can share that back through Nevada chiefs. I think, for me, and not holistically, I'll keep throwing that default statement out. The number one call is panic. The number two is to us with panic, if we can share that stress with other people that helps out a ton.

Ned Gaines: 10:09

Part of our job is to advocate for the consumer, so we're happy to take those calls.

Jenni Burr: 10:14

So the Nevada Fire Chiefs Association worked with Assembly Member Dickman on assembly bill 437, what was proposed in that bill, Matt?

Matt Peterson: 10:24

So what we were trying to do is create, it's, it's like a fair act, which is pretty similar to other states. In fact, there's 38 other states that have fair plans in the it's an insurance of last resort, is what we were looking at trying to help with. So if people couldn't get reasonably priced insurance within a certain range, or couldn't get insurance that there was an avenue. Our intent was never that, that they stayed on that insurance forever. We definitely don't want to reference when people reference a fair act or fair plan, the number one topic when you Google, it is California, and it's now, I think, the fifth or so largest insurance carrier in the state of California. We definitely do not want to become that. We don't want to be a competitor with private industry. It is an insurance of last resort, and we don't expect people to stay on it. We expect them now, hey, you're on a fair plan. You need to mitigate your property and then continue to work with private industry and private insurance to get off of this state fair plan.

Jenni Burr: 11:31

The purpose of the plans, then is basically to insure them over that process of mitigation and trying to find somebody who will cover them, is that right?

Matt Peterson: 11:41

Yeah, we did, we did a lot of capital days where we went down and did a lot of education with our elected officials. When it came out of the assembly, it was very well educated. When it went into the Senate, it died dramatically due to bad information that was being spread around. And it's, I don't think it's ideal by any means. But, like I said, it's an insurance of last resort, was our targeting point.

Jenni Burr: 12:09

And what if anything, did the committee agree on with that, even though it died once it hit the Senate. Was there, were there any pieces that the Senate did agree on?

Matt Peterson: 12:21

I wasn't involved with the Senate piece as much as I was with the assembly piece. So I can't, I can't speak to that in in very much detail, as we've spoken in the assembly, there were some concerns, and we kind of talked through those, and said there's got to be some, some good sideboards painted on this so that it has not become the largest insurer in Nevada. And really, Ned could probably speak more of this, right through my education process on the in the previous Insurance Commissioner, Nevada is a healthy state for insurance, right? I think some of these impacts are from Nationwide impacts and insurance companies wanting to minimize their risk, which, as private industry should. Right, we're just trying to make sure that homeowners still have the ability, if something catastrophic happens, that they're not up the creek without a paddle.

Jenni Burr: 13:12

Definitely. The Nevada Fire Chiefs Association is a nonprofit organization that seeks to help member fire chiefs and fire personnel at all levels to be the best they can be. The association also has wildfire risk reduction program grants available to create defensible space and reduce wildfire risk. Find out more at NVFIRECHF.ORG All right, so let's switch gears. So Assembly Bill 376 was another bill introduced this 2025 session, by Assembly Member PK O'Neill, and it passed. Ned, could you give us an overview of what that bill aimed to achieve, or aims to achieve?

Ned Gaines: 14:03

Yes, so it was designed to address the growing difficulty that some Nevadans are seeing in obtaining homeowner insurance. As Matthew said, we do have a healthy market. Yes, some people are being non renewed by their current insurer, but what we are hearing from our end, they are able to obtain coverage with another insurer. We are not hearing of anybody that is completely unable to find insurance. So we still have carriers that are willing to write in these high wildfire risk areas, however, you know, it is an ongoing problem. We, you know, it's a matter of when is the next wildfire and where is it going to be. So this bill was designed to try to get ahead of that address. It gives some flexibility to the insurers to be a bit innovative. So it does a number of things. One of the first things it does is it does allow for insurers to carve out wildfire coverage on a homeowner's policy.

Jenni Burr: 15:19

Meaning that it could be excluded or eliminated?

Ned Gaines: 15:23

It could be excluded or eliminated. So they could offer, if you offered a homeowner's policy, it had to cover fire, which included fire from any source. With the passage of this bill, it will still cover all other types of fire, but they could say we're going to exclude any fire that is due to wildfire. There is a caveat to that, carriers can't just drop that coverage. They must file with my office to receive approval to do so. To date, no carrier has done that. I know there's been some messages in the news that come January 1, wildfire coverage potentially will be dropped. As of right now, nobody is losing their wildfire coverage as of January what. In my conversations in the industry, that's not something that any of them are looking to do at this time,

Jenni Burr: 16:25

And if they choose to do that, so if you're a homeowner with an existing policy, will insurance companies be required to disclose if they are dropping that wildfire coverage?

Ned Gaines: 16:35

Yes.

Jenni Burr: 16:36

Okay.

Ned Gaines: 16:37

Yes. We are work, currently working on a regulation to address the disclosure requirements. That's something that will be coming soon. But the idea behind allowing them to carve out the wildfire, if that's the sole reason for being non renewed, we wanted the consumer to maintain their coverage for everything else, because there's, you know, wildfire is not the only peril that a homeowner's policy covers. You don't want them to lose their entire policy, where they would lose if their dishwasher malfunctions and floods home, if they have a grease fire that starts in the kitchen, you don't want them to lose coverage for that. You know, if their dog bites somebody, you don't want them to lose their liability coverage. So that was the idea behind limiting it to just the wildfire exclusion.

Jenni Burr: 17:38

And so question about that. So most mortgages require homeowners to have wildfire coverage as part of their insurance policy. So if companies are allowed to exclude it and somebody can't get coverage for wildfire, then what's the Division of Insurance able to do to protect homeowners from losing that coverage or being priced out by this coverage that is required by their mortgage lenders?

Ned Gaines: 18:07

That is the second thing the bill does is it creates a regulatory sandbox to give carriers the opportunity to be innovative. I have been in contact with carriers that are interested in participating in the regulatory sandbox. One of the ideas that could be presented, nobody's filed anything yet, but one of the ideas that has been floated is possibly doing a wildfire deductible, a separate deductible. It's very common for homeowner policies to have a separate wind and hail deductible, especially on those states that are have a very high hail risk. Very common for their they'll have their standard deductible for every other peril. But if any damage is caught by wind or hail, their deductible is slightly higher, and it's so they're taking on more of the risk. That's something that has been floated. It could be earthquake is also another example. Typically, when you have an earthquake policy, your deductible is much higher than it would be under a standard homeowners, it could be upwards of 25%

Jenni Burr: 19:24

And with that, then, when insurance companies are thinking about pricing that, how does risk play into that? Because, you know, say you are up on along the Sierra front in the more wooded areas, as opposed to, you know, in Elko, and you're in more of a brushy area, will the prices potentially be like at that state level, where everybody is just going to have to pay more, or is there some avenue for having it tied more to like risk in your particular area?

Ned Gaines: 19:59

If they were, for an example, if a company decides they are going to pull out the wildfire peril, that is, you know, a major component of the overall premium that would have to adjust down. So it would bring down the price. If they implement a wildfire deductible, generally, companies will offer it at different levels, so consumers get to pick how much risk they're willing to take on, the more risk they're willing to take on, the lower their premium. This could give a lot more power to the consumer to really make that judgment call of how much risk can I take on. When you live in a high wildfire area, build an high wildfire area knowing it's a high wildfire area, you know there is the argument that you should take on more of the risk, because that is a choice that you are making to do so, one that you are entitled to make, but there are consequences that come with it.

Jenni Burr: 21:06

Matt, question for you about that, how well do you think your average homeowner that you're working with is at kind of understanding their risk when it comes to wildfire? Like do you think they would be able to choose a policy that accurately reflects their risk?

Matt Peterson: 21:25

No. It's not a problem until people are aware of the problem. And that's just, right, that's with anything you know your auto maintenance kind of same thing. You don't know that you have a problem with your engine until it's already a problem, and then you have to learn about the problem. And so I think homeowners are it's not a problem until the insurance industry says, Hey, you have a problem that's currently occurring. And going back talking about that sandbox, I think those are phenomenal options. Each insurance company has a different map or different product that they have contracted with or utilized from another company that showed the risk in that area. The state has another threat map. The challenge with those is, where's the data come from? How are they implemented? What map are they using? What different product? I believe, Utah just came out with something this morning that said on January 1, they're required to use the singular map at the state for the top 5% of home risk, right? So it's not an insurance company with their proprietary product that they don't want to share saying, well, we've determined this risk. It's the state saying, here's the consolidated data from different sources that is now recognized, and that's the source they should use. I would love to see the insurance office and the insurance industry work with NDF to one update those maps so we have good current data and that, as well as work with folks on the ground to validate data and then use that singular map to say, here's where the risk really is, you don't get to just arbitrarily determine where the risk is.

Jenni Burr: 23:04

And Matt, when you're talking about that, are you also thinking about, like pulling it down to the actual homeowners level, where then you could incorporate things like mitigation efforts?

Matt Peterson: 23:16

So I think homeowner individual properties is wildly important, but I think the community assessment is just as important. We look at those catastrophic fires and LA, we look at Colorado a couple years ago, right around New Year's and Christmas, those were entire community losses. So when we're dealing with those community loss, and I think that demonstrates holistically that it has to be addressed at a community level and at a large impact level. You could treat your home, but if your neighbor doesn't treat their home, their home might catch yours on fire no matter how well your property is treated. A lot of our fuels goals, when we start implementing fuels projects and community. Our number one effort is, can we get to your community and through your community? So if a fire is approaching. Then we look at treating around the community, and then we treat individual properties within the community. So those are our three our three goals at Elko County, where right we have to get to the fire, so whether it's in your community or at the back of your community, so to and through. And then is there protections around your community, and so that's that green strip that we're talking about around, so, roadside treatments, then around your community, then we'll come back and say, let's start working on individual properties, because if we can protect it from an external threat. That's right, that's normally where big fires chew up a bunch of homes. And then the third one, right? And these are all pretty rapidly succeeding, right, I say them that way, but it takes years to complete these projects. If your neighbor's property catches on fire is yours protected. So those are, those are kind of our three goals.

Jenni Burr: 25:05

During a wildfire, firefighters have a lot to do. Make it easier for firefighters to defend your home by creating defensible space now. Defensible space is the area between a house and an oncoming wildfire, where the vegetation has been managed to reduce the wildfire threat. Proper defensible space doesn't mean removing all vegetation, though. By following the lean, clean and green rule, you can keep your property safe while preserving its natural beauty. Check out our defensible space guide to learn more. You can find the guide in the resources section of our website at livingwithfire.org.

Ned Gaines: 25:48

One thing I wanted to touch on that, you know, Matthew said earlier is, your question that's kind of started it all, about how, how much does the average consumer know about their overall risk? And one thing we we highly recommend when you're looking for insurance, go to an agent, go to a licensed agent that is able to explain how your coverage works. Some of the mitigation that you may need to take. And you know, I understand it, it's very easy sometimes to go with the cheapest option when it comes to insurance, especially when you're on a budget. A lot of times those options are the direct buy, where you just go online and you purchase a policy. The problem with that is you have to do a lot of your own research to understand what it is you're buying, because you're not going to have anybody there helping you. Very important, go to an agent. If you have questions about that agent, you can contact my office, we can tell you whether or not that person is licensed in Nevada. You definitely want somebody licensed in Nevada. You don't want somebody that's only licensed in Texas. They know nothing about the Nevada market. So again, and they what they can do, because then you may have coverage, but another thing you have to worry about is, do you have enough coverage. If your house was to burn completely down, have you purchased enough coverage to rebuild it back to the way it was? And a good agent is going to take the time to go through with you all of the features of your home. That's another thing for consumers to do. Document what you have in your home. Document your belongings so that you make sure that you get enough coverage to replace your belongings. Document how your home is built? Do you have expensive tile, or is it linoleum? You know, all of that has an impact on how much it's going to cost to replace your home, and the more research and the more documentation you do, if you do suffer a total loss, the better off you're going to be, and the claims process is going to go much smoother for you.

Jenni Burr: 28:23

That's a really good tip. So a lot of our outreach efforts are centered around wildfire preparedness, and we educate people about, you know, how defensible space and home hardening reduce the risk of wildfire. And we, you know, often get that question from homeowners, if completing these mitigations are going to lower their insurance rates or their ability to get insurance. We've touched on it a little bit, but for either of you, you know, are you really seeing those mitigation efforts having a significant impact on homeowners insurance here in Nevada, or is that something that is still to be determined on how, how that rolls out?

Ned Gaines: 29:03

From our perspective, there are insurers who have filed for discounts for mitigation. Something Matthew touched on, though, is that generally, those discounts will only apply if you live in a community where the entire community has taken those mitigation efforts. The fire wise community is one of them. If the entire community has mitigated and they have reached the level to where they are fire wise certified, there are multiple carriers that will give you a discount for that. But the case where, I did mitigation that I lived in a bigger neighborhood, but none of my neighbors did anything. No, you're not going to see a discount for that, because while you've done what needs to be done, your risk didn't really go down because your neighbors have not done anything.

Jenni Burr: 30:05

Right, I think about that, like in my own neighborhood, it's a neighborhood established in the 60s, so it has some very large trees, some of which are like big, like sequoias. And I look at those, and I think they are gorgeous. And I also look and think, wow, if that starts on fire, that's a whole Ember storm headed toward my house that it really illustrates for me that importance of like, yeah, thinking about that, no matter what I do to my yard, if there's these other pieces around me, or other homes around me that have things that increase my risk, then I'm still going to do those things in my yard, but my risk is still pretty high, and I'm not sure that people think about that very much.

Ned Gaines: 30:48

Right. And fire wise, is is a start. It is a good program. What we really need to move towards, though, are the Institute of business and home safety standards or IBHS, that is the true fire hardening to where, if you get the whole community in, your community can become the buffer keeps the fire from extending further.

Jenni Burr: 31:18

Right. And I think I read that the IBHS program is now going to be occurring here in the state, is that true? Because I think it started out in California and was in one or two more states, but is it now going to be implemented here in Nevada?

Ned Gaines: 31:36

I have heard that. Now, I don't have a lot of details, I know in California, they recently completed the first fully IBHS compliant community.

Jenni Burr: 31:51

Wow, that's great.

Ned Gaines: 31:53

So everything is built to those standards. And surprisingly, you know what gets called out a lot when it comes to mitigation, is the cost. And a lot of builders have been somewhat resistant to wanting to implement those standards, because they say it's going to increase the cost of the home too much. When everything was done in California, in this one community, on average, it only increased the cost by about $3,000.

Jenni Burr: 32:25

Wow, that's phenomenal. That seems like a very small amount of your overall home cost.

Ned Gaines: 32:31

Especially when you're talking about a home in California.

Jenni Burr: 32:33

Right, yeah I mean, so much more, right.

Ned Gaines: 32:37

So mitigation, and it's worth it,

Jenni Burr: 32:39

Right.

Ned Gaines: 32:41

But you know, of course, you have some people that can $3,000 it's not a lot of money, but for other people,$3,000 is a significant amount. So, you know, you still have to, you know, find that happy medium of you know, what is workable. Also, if you have an established community, bringing that whole community up to IBHS standards. You know, it takes a lot more work.

Jenni Burr: 33:07

Yeah, that was going to be my next question is, you know, when you're talking about retrofitting homes, it's a pretty expensive endeavor to be looking at. Do you see any possibility that insurance companies would, or the state would create a pool of money available to do those mitigations? You know, maybe, like, some kind of a loan that you can get to do the mitigation and then you pay it back, but just something to kind of jumpstart people's ability to do those retrofits?

Ned Gaines: 33:40

It is a possibility. I I myself, I'm not a policymaker. I can make suggestions, but, you know, that's a possibility. There are a number of grants that are available through various organizations that could help with that as well. You know, it's, this is a focus for my department, or my division. Rather, this year is to really start looking at what are some options that we have as a state, you know, in partnership with the insurance industry to answer some of these questions and to find a path forward. So we will be heavily focusing on, you know, the wildfire issue this year.

Jenni Burr: 34:30

Well, we'll stay tuned for more outcomes from that. The impacts of wildfires on insurance coverage are increasingly on people's minds. To find out more about this topic, be sure to listen to our previous podcast episode. The insurance dilemma part one, wildfire risk and its impact on insurance affordability in Nevada, explores how wildfire risk is affecting insurance affordability and availability in Nevada. The insurance dilemma part two, defining risk, explores different perspectives on wildfire risk. Check back in the future for more episodes related to how wildfire is impacting insurance. So in doing some research, I read that Colorado legislatures passed House Bill. 25-1182, which required insurance carriers to consider mitigation efforts at property, community and state levels when assessing risk and setting premiums. It also requires insurance companies to share what discounts are available for mitigation and to allow homeowners to see their wildfire risk score and appeal if they think it's inaccurate. Matt, are any similar ideas being discussed by the Nevada Fire Chiefs Association for future legislation efforts?

Matt Peterson: 35:52

We've had very casual conversations about it because I think Colorado, Utah, are pointing their folks back to their risk rating and a singular data source. It's so hard for us right now to pin what data source they're using to say this is a higher risk. And so we've talked about it, but we've identified the problem, we have not identified a solution yet. But going back to your your last conversation, I would love a pot of money, either, some way to do these inspections, to do the on ground, on the ground, validation and the treatments. I don't want to spook the herd when I say this, but I see the insurance industry, and the mortgage industry, and home sales and everything else is a it's a bright light out there that I don't know if it's a rocket coming towards me or the sun, right? It's two things that could change how the United States functions, and not just a Nevada problem. I think that the insurance commissioner has done a phenomenal job of trying to be engaged and working through these challenges with us. Those pots of money is in mitigation, right? I live in a neighborhood that was built. My house was built in 66 I have the same exact issue as they Yeah, yeah. I have the same exact issue you do. And it's just, it's a, it's a looming like, hey, how does this get mitigated?

Jenni Burr: 37:12

Yeah.

Matt Peterson: 37:14

And so those risk areas, I know there's a Southern California University, and I can't remember which one at this point. We have fuel models across the United States, from everything from Southern rough to timber, right? That includes Alaska, Tundra, everything there's, there's a ton of them. They're evaluating creating another fuel model that is just home to home ignitions, like those conflagrations that you were talking about. So I don't know how to rank those. Right? I've done a good job of being a politician in the sentence of talking in a circle. I don't know how to rank those without a singular set of data that we're all looking at.

Ned Gaines: 37:49

And that's something you know we're looking at is trying to find that singular point of data. There are a lot of other entities out there that are doing this work, and, you know, getting them kind of come together, there's going to be a focus, you know, there's a company that's doing some doing mapping that they're using LiDAR, so their mapping is much more accurate than, say, use of a drone or just satellite imagery. It's the LiDAR. They can actually tell you what species of tree it is that the LiDAR is picking up, and they can tell you whether it's healthy or not. It's really phenomenal detail they can get. Bringing all these people to the table is going to be key.

Jenni Burr: 38:45

And when or if, I guess, we get to a point where we have that data set that is at a state level, ss that something that will be shared out with, say, you know, fire departments, so they can also use it when they're looking at their own, you know, mitigation planning and fire planning, would that be the goal?

Ned Gaines: 39:09

I you know, from my perspective, fire chiefs should be, you know, part of the conversation. I will let Matthew hear how far down, you know, they would want to bend that.

Matt Peterson: 39:21

So I'll give you some more information, then I'll come back to that. So Western fire chiefs is also working on this challenge with using the IBHS standards in Nevada, as well as mapping and consolidating all the data sources. So we are working on that timeline currently is a, I won't say a large question mark, but a medium one, I have a personal tangent that I'll give you about maps, like, if another company comes to me with a mapping product to show me how high the fire risk is, I'll probably lose my mind.

Jenni Burr: 39:52

Right.

Matt Peterson: 39:53

Because we've spent more money on technology to identify the problem that's been identified for the last 50 to 100 years. I would rather take that funding and start doing treatments and recording it into existing systems so we don't have another map that shows red is bad. I want to be able to change the color on the map. Every time I go to a conference, if you walk around the conference, there's, I will say, 50% of the booths there are technology that is just changing you from one technology to another, or a mapping program that shows you, hey, I can show you that your red area is still red. And I'm like, Thanks. That's great. I can do that without a map. I think that the technology of, let's consolidate what we have instead of creating a new system, or showing me a new red map, and then working toward that. And I don't think that that data is a bad thing to share, but it needs to be good data to share, not data from Company A, B and C that's selling you their product, to show red is bad or something else. It needs to be actual, measurable data to make a change, is what I will keep saying.

Jenni Burr: 41:03

Yeah.

Matt Peterson: 41:03

Don't show me a map without giving me your money to fix it. We've identified the problem already.

Jenni Burr: 41:08

Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Is there any questions you have for each other?

Matt Peterson: 41:15

No, I've learned a lot about how the Insurance Commission, office or division can help fire chiefs. We've been working with them for quite a while. They had a change of commissioners recently, so kind of let him get his feet on the ground, even though it's, I hope you were running when you hit it. It's a lot of work to catch up on.

Jenni Burr: 41:35

Anything you want to say that you want to have make it into the podcast, or anything you want to revisit that you are thinking, oh, I wish I had said something or added something?

Matt Peterson: 41:45

I will say, so. I think we've identified the problems, and our three Nevada fire chiefs, we're trying to find as many solutions as we possibly can. Like I will keep saying, what problem are we trying to solve and what solutions do we have to it. If we don't have the solutions that's why we lean on the insurance within and say, Hey, this is a problem we're having locally, how can you help? Or can you educate us more, maybe we're just missing something. Right, the Ted lasso will be curious before we're judgmental, so that we can understand the entirety of the problem. This has been a looming problem since insurance was created. Fixing it overnight is not going to happen either.

Ned Gaines: 42:24

It is going to be a long process. But I, you know, I am hopeful that with working together, we can, I mean we're never going to keep wildfires from happening, you know. And that's not the goal, really, because it's an impossibility, but I am hopeful, and do believe we can mitigate the consequences of those wildfires. Main thing is, we don't want loss of life, number one, and we don't want loss of property.

Jenni Burr: 43:15

Be sure to check out our show notes for the great tips that Ned shared. The impacts of wildfire and associated risk will continue to impact insurance into the future, and we hope to have Commissioner Ned Gaines as a panelist at our upcoming 2026 Fire Adapted Nevada summit at the University of Nevada Reno campus in February. Our annual Fire Adapted Nevada summit brings together community leaders and wildfire partners from across Nevada for a two day event dedicated to advancing wildfire resilience through collaboration, innovation and action. Find out more and register at livingwithfire.org. We hope to see you there. Thank you for listening to the Living With Fire podcast. You can find more stories and resources about wildfire at our website, livingwithfire.org. The Living With Fire program is funded by the Bureau of Land Management, the Nevada Division of Forestry and the US Forest Service, and we're managed by the University of Nevada, Reno extension, an equal opportunity institution.