New state law aimed at ensuring Colorado homeowners get credit for wildfire mitigation from insurers

A new law could help lower homeowners' insurance in Colorado even as wildfires burn in many parts of the state.

Colorado has the fourth highest premiums in the country right now.

The law, which took effect July 1, is aimed at ensuring homeowners are doing the kind of mitigation that matters for safety and savings.

Wildfire Mitigation Specialist Tom Welle with West Metro Fire is helping homeowners understand what that mitigation entails. On Tuesday CBS Colorado tagged along with Welle as he showed homeowner Heather Ryan where her home was vulnerable to fire.

"The structure and out to 5 feet are the most important real estate in terms of survivability of the home," Welle told Ryan. "We want 5 feet around the structure where nothing is growing."

He says the type of roofing, siding and windows also impact the spread of fire.

"Vinyl siding is really good from a maintenance standpoint, bad from fire standpoint. It takes very little heat. Regular annealed glass, plate glass, will fracture at about 180 degrees. That's less heat than it takes to ignite your wood wall."

Welle says some vegetation is a magnet for fire.

"This stuff's got to go. This stuff is a juniper, and junipers are easy to ignite from embers."

Ryan says she was surprised by some of Welle's recommendations.

"I expected that maybe he would say we had to mitigate something with the pine trees, but I didn't know about the junipers," she said. "And I didn't know about windows."

She lives in a townhome in Lakewood located in the shadow of Green Mountain.

"I looked at a map for the fire zone areas and I saw that we were in an orange area -- so, risky -- and we're also in a wind tunnel," she said. "I just really wanted to mitigate the damage that could be done."

In addition to saving her home, Ryan may also save money. Under the new law, insurers that use "wildfire risk scores" to set rates must notify homeowners by Oct. 1 of their scores, how to improve them, and how to challenge them. Depending on the score, homeowners may be eligible for discounts.

They can also qualify for discounts if their home is certified as a "Wildfire Prepared Home" at wildfireprepared.org.

The home must meet mitigation standards set by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety to be certified.

"What this really does is tell people what is the mitigation that matters," said Carole Walker with the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. "It's exciting that we're all on the same page. ... A person from your fire department that comes and inspects your home is looking for the same things that matter to your insurance company."

Walker hopes the new law incentivizes community-wide mitigation. So does Welle, who plans to meet with Ryan's neighbors, too.

"We've got to start somewhere. So this one homeowner may be the catalyst that moves the entire community forward," he said.