Where We Stand

Wildfire recovery and insurance legislation

Bill

Governor’s action

Principal effect

AB 1642 (Harabedian)

Signed — Chapter 239

Requires development of science-based standards for testing and remediating wildfire-related contamination in homes and schools.

AB 1795 (Gipson)

Signed — Chapter 240

Requires specified insurance coverage for testing, remediation, restoration, and additional living expenses associated with wildfire-smoke contamination.

AB 1842 (Harabedian)

Signed — Chapter 241

Establishes a permanent mortgage-forbearance framework for qualifying disaster-affected homeowners.

AB 1847 (Harabedian)

Signed — Chapter 242

Extends mortgage-forbearance protections for qualifying survivors of the 2025 Los Angeles fires.

FAIR Plan and property-insurance legislation

AB 69 (Calderon) — Signed, Chapter 496. Revises FAIR Plan policy notices, renewal procedures, broker obligations, and efforts to place consumers in the voluntary insurance market. The enacted version retains the amendment removing “any one of” from Insurance Code section 10095.5(b), creating the broker-compliance concern we previously discussed. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

AB 1680 (Calderon) — Signed, Chapter 540. Strengthens Department of Insurance oversight of the FAIR Plan, authorizes corrective orders and penalties, permits changes to available policy limits and renters’ fair-rental-value coverage, and modifies FAIR Plan clearinghouse procedures. Because AB 1680 was enacted after AB 69, its contingent language coordinating the two statutes controls where applicable. AB-1680 California FAIR Plan Association.

SB 1301 (Allen) — Signed, Chapter 693. Beginning in 2028, expands nonrenewal notice and disclosure requirements, requires disclosure of wildfire-risk information, and gives policyholders an opportunity to correct remediable property conditions and qualify for renewal. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

SB 877 (Pérez) — Vetoed. Would have required insurers to disclose preliminary as well as final loss estimates and related calculations.

SB 878 (Pérez) — Vetoed. Would have codified claim-handling deadlines, required prompt payment of actual-cash-value and undisputed replacement-cost amounts, and imposed interest on late payments. SB-878 Insurance business practices.

Wildfire prevention, mitigation, and preparedness package

AB 1699 (Rogers): Expands tools for prescribed and cultural burning, extends burn-boss certification periods, and continues streamlined procedures developed under the Governor’s beneficial-fire executive order.

AB 1934 and AB 1964 (Bennett): Direct the State Fire Marshal to advance home-hardening certification and implementation programs.

AB 1960 (Bennett) — Chapter 764: Establishes a voluntary state wildfire-mitigation validation program recognizing communities that meet specified home-hardening, defensible-space, fuel-reduction, and preparedness criteria. Recognized communities may receive priority for certain CAL FIRE grants. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

AB 2513 (Petrie-Norris): Expands regional forest-and-fire-capacity grants and support for landscape-scale projects.

SB 894 (Allen): Establishes financial assistance intended to reduce homeowners’ and businesses’ up-front costs for home hardening and defensible-space improvements.

SB 973 (Becker): Establishes the California Wildfire Preparedness Program to support county-level coordination, risk modeling, mitigation, preparedness, and recovery.

SB 1079 (Stern): Creates a CAL FIRE Fire Innovation Unit to evaluate, acquire, coordinate, and deploy wildfire-prevention and firefighting technologies.

SB 1153 (Caballero): Requires affected urban water suppliers to incorporate wildfire preparedness, infrastructure protection, response, and recovery into emergency plans.

SB 1370 (Stern): Provides consolidated and expedited environmental review for qualifying wildfire-mitigation projects.

SB 742 (Pérez): Addresses permanently abandoned electrical transmission facilities and requires utilities to account for inactive and abandoned infrastructure in wildfire-mitigation planning.

The package also includes AB 1749, concerning drones that interfere with wildfire suppression; AB 2075, addressing fire-safety equipment requirements; AB 2152, streamlining qualifying local fire-station projects; and SB 904, SB 959, and SB 1093, which address aspects of disaster recovery and assistance. Governor of California

Additional notable measures

AB 706 (Aguiar-Curry) — Signed September 30. Creates the Forest Organic Residue, Energy, and Safety Transformation—or FOREST—and Wildfire Prevention Fund framework, aimed at managing forest residue and supporting wildfire-prevention activities. Governor of California

AB 2483 (Elhawary) — Signed, Chapter 612. Establishes the Formerly Incarcerated Firefighter Certification and Employment Program to help qualified former fire-camp participants enter the professional wildland-firefighting workforce. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

AB 1891 (Connolly) — Vetoed. Would have established the Beneficial Fire Capacity Program to expand prescribed- and cultural-fire capacity. The Governor instead signed AB 1699 and related measures addressing beneficial fire through a different statutory framework. Governor of California