Wildfires ravaged all states but Delaware last year, and occur all year round. Cheddar News speaks with Mark Anquillare, President and COO of Verisk about how businesses can best prepare themselves to mitigate risks of wildfires. 

Closing Bell

Steps Businesses Should Take To Protect Themselves From Wildfires

Okay well with record heat waves and ongoing droughts, wildfires have become a national problem. Summer tends to be the peak of wildfire season, but scientists say it's grown longer in recent years with a fire sweeping through the suburbs of Denver colorado in december showing that they can strike at any time? Well, joining me now is Mark and Gloria President and Ceo at Verisk data analytics and risk assessment from Mark. Thanks so much for coming on. So every state, in fact, the Delaware did have a wildfire last year. Of course they caused damage to the environment, but also clearly wreak havoc on people, businesses and just simply day to day life. And so how much money are wildfires costing americans so far this year? Yeah, well, a great question. So, um, thank you for having me. One of the things we've seen is just the absolute explosion in the number of, of insured losses that have occurred as a result of wildfire. So over the last five years, three of those years we've seen insured losses exceed $10 billion. So very noteworthy. And 2022 is kind of on that same path of a very high. uh, kind of occurrence here. So a peril that continues to grow and become more problematic. Mm hmm. Well, certainly we know California does seem to be the epicenter of this Mark devastation. Thousands of people, tens of thousands of people impacted their homes day to day life. Wildlife there as well. Do you think that other people in other areas should look to California sort of as a cautionary tale. I think unfortunately you know California has a lot of the key ingredients to what kind of creates wildfire? It's it's a combination of of the fuel which is the vegetation, it's a little bit of the wind patterns. It has to do with defensible space around buildings and clearly a little bit about what those buildings are made of. So what we're seeing is really just an explosion across The country. So 2022 we've seen about 30,000 35,000 fires torch about 4.7 million acres. Uh and that compares to about 32,000 fires and 1.7 million acres you know in 21. So it is not just a California problem? It is it is just growing. Um we embarrassed what we do is we we gather a lot of information about risk around properties and around our assets are insured and we have analytics to try to assess where there's high risk and extreme risk of fire and the number of properties primarily in California will tell you that. But we noticed that about 4.5 million of the U. S. Properties that's in the United States are high or extreme risk of wildfire damage. So a very significant number and extends well beyond just California, wow. So what steps mark should businesses take to prepare themselves in case of one of these wildfires impacting their own property? Yeah I think it's a great question. So I think it starts with first being, you know, the mitigation going and trying to mitigate before that fire. So defensible space is very big, trying to make sure that, you know, weeds and brush around a building through a drive through uh is clean, clear and and kind of keeps it away from the building itself. Second thing I always advocate for is, you know, making sure you understand the coverage amounts that your policy has, make sure you have sufficient coverage, check it regularly, make sure what the terms are and there's different options such as business income insurance meaning uh if you were to be put out of business, the insurance would cover, you know, net income and losses from that shutdown if if temporary. So uh the combination of being proactive and a little bit reactive I think is what's key to mitigating the risk you have as a business owner. Is there any business mark in any place across America that doesn't need to be considering insurance to protect against a wildfire? Um so I would say it this way, I would across the United States um worried about, we refer to as uninsured and underinsured. So think about whether you have flood insurance, whether you have the proper sufficient earthquake insurance and we think that properties across the United States only have about 50% of the coverage they should have. So some of that earthquake and flood summits wildfire, I think you should be selective about You want what you want to buy. But I will tell you that a vast majority of people who need wildfire insurance or that type of coverage uh, do not have it. Okay, very interesting. Mark, thank you so much for sharing your insights. I hope you'll come back. That's Mark and Valerie, president and Ceo of Eras. We appreciate it.