California wildfires are intensifying due to climate change, creating more structural damage and straining the housing insurance market. During the period focused on, 2015 to 2021, regulations limited insurance premium increases and prohibited using climate forecasts in pricing models, pushing insurers toward non-renewals. My thesis focuses on the 2019 Moratorium policy that froze insurance non-renewals in wildfire-affected ZIP codes for one year. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I found that while the policy suppressed non-renewals overall, its impact was much more pronounced in higher-risk ZIP codes.
