Homeowners Insurance

Schneiderman Insurance Agency makes the process of finding homeowners insurance convenient for you. Tell us about your situation, we review your risks and options with you, we help you put the right coverage in place, and we stay with you at renewal.

Several coverages sit alongside the base policy and often get overlooked. Scheduled property insurance covers jewelry, art, and firearms above the standard sublimits. Identity theft coverage helps with the cost of restoring your records. In-home business insurance answers exposures a homeowners policy typically excludes once you work from the house. Mortgage protection insurance is a separate decision that some households weigh alongside the property coverage.

The dwelling figure drives most of the premium and is reached through a reconstruction estimate, then reviewed on the same cycle as your other personal policies.

Why is homeowners insurance so hard to get in California right now?

Because for several years the price regulators would approve and the price insurers needed to write wildfire risk did not meet, and carriers stopped writing rather than argue. The result was that the FAIR Plan, an association of admitted insurers created by statute as the insurer of last resort, became the only option for many households in the hills and canyons. The Department of Insurance’s Sustainable Insurance Strategy was built to reverse that, and by 2026 the department reports carriers filing to expand rather than retreat. That is a market description, not a promise about any one house. A home in Granada Hills below the ridge and a home in Porter Ranch against the open space can get very different answers from the same carrier in the same week. Our FAIR Plan and DIC page covers what to do when the standard market says no.

What did the Sustainable Insurance Strategy change?

Four things that reach your renewal. Insurers may now use a catastrophe model the department has reviewed to price wildfire, instead of relying only on past losses. They may pass through the net cost of the reinsurance they buy. In exchange, a carrier using those tools commits to write in wildfire-distressed areas at no less than 85 percent of its statewide market share. The department checks that commitment when it reviews the carrier’s rates. And the models must give credit for mitigation done by homeowners and communities. The department’s one-page summary lays out the pieces. For a homeowner the meaning is simple. More carriers are willing to look at high-risk ZIP codes than in 2023, and the hardening work you do now is supposed to show up in the score they use.

What is a wildfire risk score, and do the state hazard maps affect my eligibility?

The score is the insurer’s own number, and California makes them show it to you. Under the Safer from Wildfires regulation, 10 CCR 2644.9, an insurer must give you your wildfire risk score within 15 days of a completed application. It must give it again at least 45 days before each renewal and at least 75 days before any non-renewal, with an explanation of how to lower it. You can appeal it, the insurer must respond within 30 days, and your agent must forward the appeal within five. The Cal Fire hazard severity zone maps are a different thing. They measure hazard over decades without counting mitigation, and the Department of Insurance has said the maps do not set rates or availability. What the maps do is trigger legal duties, such as 100 feet of defensible space under Public Resources Code section 4291. They also trigger the ember-resistant zone within five feet of the house, which the Board of Forestry adopted in August 2026 and is finishing through the Office of Administrative Law. That five-foot zone is also one of the discounts in the next section, so the same work satisfies the law and lowers the score.

What must a non-renewal notice include, and what is the one-year moratorium?

A non-renewal has to arrive at least 75 days before the policy ends, or the policy continues on its existing terms for 75 days after the late notice. Insurance Code section 678 also requires the specific reasons, the insurer’s contact information and the Department of Insurance’s contact information. For a home policy it must add information on the FAIR Plan, difference in conditions policies and the state’s Home Insurance Finder. Separately, section 675.1 stops an insurer from canceling or non-renewing a residential policy in any ZIP code within or adjacent to a fire perimeter for one year after the Governor declares a state of emergency. That protection applies when the only reason is that the home sits where a wildfire occurred. The department publishes the covered ZIP codes in a bulletin after each fire; the Palisades and Eaton bulletin covered much of the western and northern San Fernando Valley. The moratorium has exceptions for negligence, unrelated losses and physical changes to the property, and it does not stop a rate increase. After a total loss in a disaster the same section requires the insurer to offer renewal for at least the next two years.

Which home-hardening steps earn Safer from Wildfires discounts?

The regulation lists them, and every admitted insurer and the FAIR Plan must recognize them in the rating plan. On the structure: a Class A fire-rated roof, enclosed eaves, ember-resistant vents, multi-pane windows or functional shutters, and six inches of noncombustible material at the base of the walls. Around the structure: nothing combustible within five feet, vegetation and debris cleared from under decks, combustible sheds and outbuildings more than 30 feet away, and defensible space that meets section 4291. At the community level: a Firewise USA site in good standing or a designated Fire Risk Reduction Community. The size of each discount is set in the carrier’s filed plan, so no percentage applies across the board. The Department of Insurance’s consumer FAQ explains how to ask for a re-score after the work is done. Tell us what you have finished; the vents and the five-foot zone are a weekend, and they are the ones most often missing from the file.

How much dwelling coverage is enough after a total loss?

Enough to rebuild today, plus room for the cost to climb while you wait. California requires every home policy to come with a disclosure using the definitions in Insurance Code section 10102. Replacement cost pays to rebuild without a deduction for depreciation. Extended replacement cost adds a stated percentage or dollar amount above the limit. Guaranteed replacement cost pays the full cost regardless of the limit, and few carriers still offer it. Building code upgrade, sometimes called ordinance or law, pays the extra cost of meeting current codes, and some policies do not include it. The disclosure itself says the rebuild figure should be adjusted every year for inflation. After a declared emergency, section 2051.5 gives you at least 36 months to collect the full replacement cost. It lets you rebuild elsewhere or buy an existing home without losing the replacement cost benefit, and section 2060 sets additional living expense at no less than 24 months. Our property coverage page goes through the limit line by line.

What is the contents advance after a total loss?

A payment you do not have to itemize. Insurance Code section 10103.7, as amended by SB 495 in 2025, applies after a covered total loss of a primary home in a declared state of emergency. The insurer must advance at least 60 percent of the contents limit, up to $350,000, without an itemized inventory. You can still claim the rest of the limit by filing the list. Every policy form issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2026 must comply; an older form may still say 30 percent and $250,000 until it renews. The same section lets you combine the dwelling and other-structures limits toward rebuilding the house when the dwelling limit falls short. The department’s summary of disaster claim laws is the one document worth saving before you need it.

Which policy form and endorsements matter: HO-3, HO-5, ordinance or law, water backup?

The form names are industry conventions, not statute, but they decide what a claim looks like. An HO-3 covers the house against any cause not excluded and your belongings only against the causes it names. An HO-5 covers both on the broader basis and usually values contents at replacement cost. Ordinance or law is the building code upgrade coverage in the previous section, and it is separate from extended replacement cost; a 1960s ranch in Granada Hills rebuilt to 2026 codes needs both. Water backup from a sewer or drain is not in the base policy and is added by endorsement. Earthquake and flood are separate policies, covered on our earthquake and flood pages. Some homes we can place directly and quickly. Others need underwriting review or a wholesale market, and those take longer. Either way you know which applies before you decide. Start a home quote or call the Granada Hills office.

Statute citations, regulation deadlines and the Zone 0 rule status current as of September 2026. Discount amounts and policy terms are set by each carrier’s filed forms; your own policy wording controls.