Insurance costs rising in California too

 A friend of mine wanted fire insurance through the state of California since bad fires had come close to his 2 1/2 acres in mt. Shasta, California. It took him about 5 years of worry and fretting before California allowed him a window to get state sponsored fire insurance for his property (this was several years ago now).

Also, we have a 2nd home that belonged to my wife's mother when she was alive in Santa Barbara which is a family home now and often one or more of our children live or visit there from around the world.

We too had to find a Fire Insurance for our 2nd home there and it is about 6000 dollars a year to cover our house from fires through fire insurance. However, the only place we could find insurance was through a Canadian Company which is strange too.

So, because of fires (and sometimes mud slides) from burn areas being hit with too many inches of rain at one time and because of the fire danger that exists most every year (but not so much this year) because of Atmospheric Rivers and Hurricane Hilary recently. But, most years there are fires all over California about now and usually pretty bad ones because a year ago we were in a basically 20 year drought. Of course all that has changed this year with only 1% of the State in drought at the very northern and very southern end of the state. So, fires have not been the problem this year (at least as of yet) that they have been almost every year since around 2000 when the big drought started to happen almost every year ever since.

And very cool weather this summer hasn't dried out the underbrush or trees that much so the fuels are still wet enough (especially along the coast) where it has been cloudy a lot this summer this year.

I would say this has been the wettest year and the coldest year I've seen in California (at least along the coast in my lifetime of living here in California and I first came here in 1952 to San Diego when I was 4 from Seattle. I have lived from San Diego to as far north as Mt. Shasta during my lifetime so far. I have also lived in Seattle, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Hilo (big island) and Maui Hawaii in Hana and Paia too during this lifetime.