Every figure on this page was first published in a My Villa Journal note with a primary source. We collect them here so an owner, an architect or a broker can see, on one page, what California insurers are pricing this year.
An insurable home in California is a house whose structure and parcel meet the wildfire-mitigation standards that insurers are required to recognise and price, so that an admitted carrier can write it at a discounted rate instead of pushing it to the FAIR Plan. In 2026 that means the Safer from Wildfires measures as a floor and the IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home designation as the reference for the largest discounts.
Each card shows the number as published, the date of our note, and the primary source. Nothing here is modelled by us.
The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety designation has 2 tiers, Home and Home Plus, and it is the aggregate standard California carriers point to when they price mitigation. A home certified at the Plus level has been offered discounts of up to 50% by admitted carriers. A reinforced concrete envelope satisfies the structural items of the checklist by construction, without add-on assemblies; the parcel items (Zone 0, vents, decks) still have to be documented. Source: Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety · My Villa Journal, April 19, 2026
Since the Department's regulation took effect, every admitted carrier must recognise 12 hardening measures organised in 3 layers layers, structure, parcel and community, and reflect them in rates. For an underwriter, a concrete home is a structure-layer answer to most of the list at once: non-combustible walls, Class A roof, ember-resistant vents and enclosed eaves are design decisions, not retrofits. What remains is the parcel layer, which is where most applications fail. Source: Insurance Journal · My Villa Journal, April 19, 2026
The FAIR Plan now covers up to $20M per building, which makes it a real fallback for a high-value home, and its 29.1% rate increase in October 2026 makes it an expensive one. Its own wildfire discount stack tops out at 16.4%, roughly a third of what an IBHS-certified home has been offered in the admitted market. The gap between the two numbers is the financial case for building to the standard. Source: Nate Wittasek, P.E. (Substack) · My Villa Journal, June 1, 2026
State Farm reported $7.6B in insured losses from the January 2025 Los Angeles fires and, as of 2026, has kept new homeowner business paused. Capacity, not only price, is the constraint: a documented, certifiable home is the submission an underwriter can say yes to. Source: Latent Insurance · My Villa Journal, June 4, 2026
Our Westside Rebuild Tracker, rebuilt weekly from City of Los Angeles permit data, shows that of the 2,616 new-home permits filed since January 2025 that declare a construction type, only 11 (0.4%) are Type I or II, the non-combustible category. The rest are wood-frame. Source: LADBS open data, retrieved 2026-10-26.
Enter your current annual premium. The estimator applies only the discount percentages published above, nothing else: no modelling, no assumptions about your parcel.
| Discount reference | Rate | Annual saving |
|---|---|---|
| FAIR Plan wildfire discount stack documented maximum · Source: Nate Wittasek, P.E. (Substack) · My Villa Journal, June 1, 2026 | 16.4% | — |
| IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home, admitted carriers up to · Source: Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety · My Villa Journal, April 19, 2026 | 50% | — |
Illustrative, not a quote. Discounts are applied by carriers to the wildfire component of a premium, subject to certification, inspection and underwriting; the "up to" figure is a ceiling reported by carriers, not a typical outcome. My Villa is not an insurance broker.
Only the points below are documented in our notes; the full Board of Forestry regulation is longer and still being finalised.
An insurable home is one whose construction and parcel meet the mitigation standards insurers are required to price: the 12 Safer from Wildfires measures recognised by the California Department of Insurance, and, for the largest discounts, the IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home designation, which admitted carriers have rewarded with premium reductions of up to 50%.
Two documented figures exist. On a FAIR Plan policy the wildfire-discount stack reaches 16.4%. With an IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home designation, admitted carriers have offered discounts of up to 50%. Both depend on the carrier, the parcel and the documentation submitted; treat them as ranges, not quotes.
Headwaters Economics and IBHS estimate a construction-cost premium of about 3% for a home built to the Wildfire Prepared Home Plus level compared with a conventional build.
The FAIR Plan is the state's insurer of last resort. In 2025 its coverage limit was raised to $20M per building, and a 29.1% rate increase takes effect on October 15, 2026, the largest in the plan's history. For an owner of a high-value home it is a fallback, priced accordingly, not a strategy.
As of 2026, State Farm, the state's largest home insurer, has kept new homeowner business paused, after an emergency 17% rate increase approved by the Department of Insurance in June 2025.
Zone 0 is the 5 ft ember-resistant perimeter immediately around the structure, the first zone IBHS and CAL FIRE look at. California's Board of Forestry and Fire Protection is codifying it as a non-combustible strip with no vegetation, mulch or wood fencing against the walls.
We design reinforced concrete villas for the Los Angeles hills and coast, engineered to meet the Safer from Wildfires measures natively rather than as retrofits, with pricing premium, site-specific pricing; we share a range in the private briefing rather than a brochure number. The projects shown on our site are concept designs and renders; a private briefing is the first step.
Also see the Insurance & Insurability category and the Westside Rebuild Tracker.
We design reinforced concrete villas for the Los Angeles hills and coast, engineered to meet the standards above by construction. A private briefing is a conversation, not a pitch.
Request a private briefing