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Surviving Wildfire and Keeping Your Home Insured with Bill Steward and Kevin Musico · Healthy Happy Wise Wealthy

• [Mary Meyer] Welcome back to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy. We have with us today, Bill Steward. He's the owner of Foresight Fire Consulting and Kevin Musico. He is with Goosehead Insurance. So what does fire and insurance have to do with each other so much? And I think we're waking up to that. So before we dive in, we're in the Reno area, and of course, we, the Hawk Fire is going and there's so much anxiety around that in our community right now, and we've had just fires nonstop. So we have a podcast sponsor, Mindiii, M-I-N-D-I-I-I. They are an IT company and they help businesses with everything on the background of your website, keeping your data safe and all kinds of stuff like that. So we're going to dive in. Bill, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself? I know you were a fire captain forever, maybe it seemed like forever before starting this. So tell us a little bit about what you do, and then we'll jump to Kevin. [Bill Steward] Yeah, thanks, Mary. I appreciate you inviting us. So my name is Bill Stewart. I'm the owner of Foresight Fire Consulting. Consulting business.. It specializes in prevention and education and mitigation for fires, both externally, around your property, only and internally. Spent 25 years in the public service. I spent five years as a fire captain here in Reno, Nevada with Truckee Meadows Fire. I also spent three years in Truckee, California as a fire prevention specialist. So fire is very important to me. It's very passionate of mine. And the biggest thing is that, you know, three years ago, I started my company because I saw a need for education and prevention. As we're seeing now in the Reno area above the foothills in Somerset, the Hawk Fire is already consumed probably close to 15 to 20,000 acres. And before that, we've had the Bug Fire and the Stallion Fire and the Fred's Fire. And we've had multiple fires within our area just within the last month. And so this is not something that's out of ordinary, but to have these many fires here locally in such dramatic fashion with the winds and the temperatures and the dry fuels, that all combines to have a catastrophic effect. And so that's why I'm trying to get out to as many people as possible to educate them, to let them know what they need to do in case they have to be evacuated, as close to 60,000 people are already out of their homes right now. No power. And it's just something that people need to be aware of. And so that's why I appreciate you inviting us onto this podcast to get the information not only out to here locally, but also to international. This fire problem is not just here in North America. It's throughout the world. [Mary Meyer] It really is. And we're going to dive into that more. Kevin, can you introduce yourself for us? [Kevin Musico] Sure. My name is Kevin Musico. I'm the co-owner of said insurance, the Musico Agency. I own it with my wife. My background's a little different. I came from a very diverse background of owning businesses and spent a long time doing risk and operational management for companies that were going defunct, international large public companies. So I got introduced to kind of risk management at a very large scale managing real estate portfolios that were multinational all over North America. And over time decided, well, let me get into helping more of the grassroots and getting closer to the consumer and opened up an insurance brokerage with my wife. And we are a full service brokerage which means we work for the client, not an insurance company. We have more than 80 carriers. We are we cover all kinds of lines. I mean, today we're going to be talking about homeowners and people that have property, but we do all kinds of insurance. And I met Bill a few years ago, discovered he had a passion about fire. And I learned a few things from him. And then together we decided, wait a minute, he does the defensible space and education on trying to prevent stuff. I'm very knowledgeable on how that applies to the insurance world and the consumer. And we found out that one plus one equals three. And we started teaching courses and doing education sessions all around the area. And that brought us here today when we have fires and people that are interested in learning more, they give us a call or they come to us and we're here to help. Yeah. [Mary Meyer] And I met you guys a couple of years ago. So you've been trying to get the word out more about this for a while. And I very much appreciate that. I know Reno and Tahoe. So I'm like, as you guys know, I'm somewhat new to this area. So it is so much of the forest of the Sierra Mountains and in Tahoe is right here. Truckee, you mentioned Truckee, California, which is also really close. So just anyone who doesn't know this area. So, you know, Truckee is less an hour or less. And so is Tahoe from where we are in Reno. But we're in a basin and it is definitely a desert. Yes. You get that super dry conditions along with actually having a lot of forest right next to us that can, you know, certainly be things that people in Reno are fire conscious, worried about fire. And it does seem like from what I'm hearing, it seems like it has gotten worse. So, Bill, what are your thoughts on that? Has it seemed to you like it's gotten worse? You've been fighting fires for a long time now. [Bill Steward] Yeah, well, you know, whether it's climate change or the Earth getting hotter or just the winds and all the things that people are talking about, the biggest thing is, you know, most all fires start small. And so if we can get a handle on those small fires and put them out quickly, that's great. It's these, you know, the one percent of the fires that align with the weather, the fuels, the topography that I talked about, those are the ones become the catastrophic wildfires because, you know, the fire department cannot put a fire truck in everybody's driveway. And so as soon as those fires break and the wind starts blowing 30, 60, 90 miles an hour, which it does around here, that's when you get the air tankers, the helicopters, all the air resources, because the firefighters can't fight the fire when it's going house to house and it's just going exponentially faster. I think the fire, the Hawk fire went from originally about 15 acres to over 2,500 in a span of less than a few hours. And so the amount of energy and the amount of heat and the amount of embers that blow off of that fire is another thing that most people don't realize. It's not your whole, it's not the fire front that's going to hit your house. It's the embers that land in your junipers or your flammable vegetation that's next to your property. Or your vents, your roof. Kevin will talk about that so far as your roof is probably your biggest exposure. If you have gutters and you live up in the wildland urban interface, those needles that land in the gutters are just kindling for those embers to land into to start a possible fire. And then the vegetation, clear out five feet around your property. Don't put junipers next to your house. Don't put anything that's flammable close to your property. I tell homeowners all the time, if the fire department can't pull a hose between the fire and your house, you are at risk of your house going up in flames. A lot of the homes that are built into the forest, the wildland urban interface or WUI is what we call it. More and more homes are being built in that environment and that's harder for fire departments to get to because of one way in, one way out access. No hydrants for water supply. Distance the fire department has to cover. All these things add up and as soon as those fires start, you know, it's just a domino effect. So yes, it's getting worse. We are seeing more and more fires. Kevin's gonna talk about how the amount of insurance claims have gone up exponentially so far as the billion dollar events. There's all kinds of things we can do ahead of time to make sure that we don't lose more communities. That goes back to personal responsibility. I said it the other night at the Arrowcreek HOA meeting, we all have to do something. Make sure you have defensible space around your property. Make sure your home is hardened. Make sure your vents are at least sixteenth of an inch. Clean out your gutters. Make sure your vegetation's removed around your property. Make sure if you do live in those rural areas that you have good address signs at the end of your dirt road or how does the fire department find you. All these things add up to making sure that you're gonna be able to survive a wildfire and then self resiliency. You gotta be able to handle things on your own if you're gonna live out in the middle of the forest and you know, live 20, 30, 40 minutes away from the fire department. Making sure you clear all your brush. Making sure you have a water supply. Making sure you do your due diligence to make sure that when the fire department does show up, they don't go by your house and say, hey, I'm not putting my crew at risk to go in there and to fight a fire to possibly take my life and not because the homeowner has not done their due diligence. So yeah, the weather, the fuels, the building environments, all those things are getting worse and so we just gotta get out and be more proactive, like doing things like this and educating people so they're prepared. [Mary Meyer] So Kevin, I know a lot of families had lost insurance on their homes because of the increased risk. So tell me about that and what they can do about it. [Kevin Musico] Yeah, well, so let me back up and give you two perspectives. One, let me explain kind of remind all of your viewers that insurance and the insurance industry is a business and they have to evaluate risks and competing and pricing and what they're doing in a market based on the expense of that. And Bill mentioned kind of the billion dollar events, kind of understanding the evolution of where the environmental impacts in terms of risk come from. A couple of decades ago, across the United States, we had a handful of what they call billion dollar events. FEMA tracks all of the major events, wildfires, hurricanes, storms, all of those kinds of events and they add up the exposure, like what damage was occurred and when they reach a billion dollars from that one event, they counted as one. Years ago, started tracking it back in the 1980s, all the way up into the mid to late 2010s, 2020s, we were getting maybe three to $5 billion events in a year. Today, in the last few years, every year we're averaging somewhere between 25 and 30 billion dollar events each year. Now it's huge and here's the other piece, that doesn't count the $900 million event that just doesn't get counted. So when the industry looks up and says, wow, it's getting harder to compete, I've got to go in and decide I'm not going to ensure this person or I'm not going to renew it, it's not personal, it's something they're looking up and saying, the costs of this are real expensive, the risks at that particular property are too extreme for our appetite. So that's one major effect. What that did was cause what's called reinsurance, the insurance company for the insurance carrier to reevaluate how they ensure the state farms and the progressives and the Mercuries and all of the companies out there and they changed their formula which made it more expensive for your insurance carrier, whoever you happen to use and that kind of caused a domino effect. That created an environment where a lot of carriers are saying, you know what, we have to adjust our pricing, that's why it's getting more expensive. We have to adjust where we're ensuring because that place is too risky for our risk pool, we have too much insured there, we have to limit how much more we add. So you start putting all that together and that changed the kind of the environment. So now let's kind of drill it down to every day, to everybody that's watching. You have insurance and you look up and you say, well, I don't understand, why is my insurance hard to get? Well, the insurance companies are looking at a few things today that five years ago they didn't look at near as close. Some of those things are, Bill mentioned, what's called that zone zero to five feet from your structure. They didn't used to pay as much attention to that as they do today. Today, if you've got a juniper or you have something, a bunch of vegetation or you have mulch right up against your house, insurance companies say, you know what, that's not really safe. We've seen the data and it proves that you're less likely to have a fire event if you take care of that zone. And then they started looking at roofs and say, well, you've got an old roof, that roof statistically shows that after 20 years, they start to fail, the components fail, the underlayment, the top layer and insurance companies say, you know what, we know now that that's riskier and therefore we're not going to ensure you unless you take some personal responsibility and fix those things. So it's been kind of a perfect storm of like Bill talked about, we've had all of these elements come together and make these explosive fires, but it's also in the industry, a perfect storm of them saying, we have more data and we have the ability to make better decisions. Let's pay attention to that and make our decisions about ensuring a home either to re-insure, to renew, or to just ensure to begin with. And they're looking at a bunch of things that used to look at near as close before. [Mary Meyer] That makes sense. And it is, I think what I like about what you guys are doing is that these are things people can do because I feel like this can just feel like so out of control, just so beyond the scope of what one human can do with their one property and their family and so what you're saying is these are very actionable steps that you can do if you know you're in a zone that has some fire. And Bill, could you tell us a little bit more about how did you guys phrase that, that five feet around your house? Is that you had a- Yes. [Bill Steward] Yeah, so there's all kinds of different language being thrown around, whether it's Cal Fire or Nevada. It's a non-combustible zone. So you wanna have pavers, rock, nothing that's going to burn within that zero to five feet. And then you go out from five to 30 feet. And that's when you have your perennials, your flowers, stuff like that. And then for a little bit, you can go out 100 feet. And this is like for new homes, but a lot of times the homes that people buy, the landscaping has already been there. They're like, you're gonna tell me to cut down all my trees that have been here for 20, 30 years. And I tell people it's a balance. The trees are made for fire. What we don't want to have happen is the trees are overhanging the branches on the roof line. If there ever was a fire, that could get into the treetops and those embers would rain down on that roof. So one of the things that both Kevin and I will do, we'll go out and do an evaluation of a property and we'll say, okay, here's some things that you can do proactively to make sure your house is not gonna catch on fire. Number one, what's your roof's like? Kevin and I talked about how long it's been there. Your vegetation around your property, your windows, your siding. If you're in a house that's 20, 30 years old, hasn't been updated, those things probably need to be addressed. Those are do-it-yourself things that people can do. Cleaning out gutters, vegetation around their home. Those are all pretty much simple do-it-yourselfers. But if you need to get new siding, new windows, new roof, that's something that's a big expense and people don't realize that. But that goes also back into insurance too. So all these things add up. So if we have, you know, it's more like you have new homes being built and you also have the older homes. So how can we address both of those? The newer homes in the Wildland Urban Interface area around here, they're built to a code now because they realize with all the data that they wanna make sure they have non-combustible roofs. They wanna make sure that they have a Vulcan vents and make sure that embers won't blow through their attic or their crawl space. They wanna make sure that the vegetation is pushed back. California has laws on the books. Public Resource Code 4291 states you have to have defensible space within that zero to five feet and then becoming more and more stringent on what that means. And they don't have the inspectors that go out and inspect all these houses. So they're trying to make sure that when the fire does come, it gives the firefighters a fighting chance to make sure they save that property. So it all goes back to the zones. And if you go to nfpa.org, you can pull up the information and see that. So that's something you can possibly put at the end of this podcast. And there's all kinds of links we can share with you so far as, you know, there's an app, WatchDuty, that people probably should get and put on their phones. I'm using it all the time. That shows you where the perimeter is so far as the evacuation and how many people are gonna be evacuated. It shows where the fire's going. It can give you wind direction. It gives you relative humidity. It's a great app for people, not only here in Nevada, but throughout the United States. So yeah, it's just, I always go back to do something because if everybody takes ownership of their property, even if it's a vacant lot, a lot of home, a lot of HOAs have vacant lots and people just sit on for investment reasons. And then they become overgrown. And that could be the weak link that takes out that whole community because that person decided, oh, I'm not gonna touch it. That's gonna cost me money. I'm just sitting on it until the real estate goes up. So all these things are so many different things to make sure that we have the right resources and the right education to let people know. And then your evacuation and knowing what to do in case you do get evacuated. How do you get out of your house if the power goes out? Opening up your garage door with the pole lever that's above your garage. All these little things add up because as history has shown us, there's fatalities due to people not being prepared, educated, and being able to handle things when the fire is looking at their back door. Resource you can look at too. It's called Alert Fire, Fire Alert Cameras that you can type into your computer and there's real-time computers. You can actually look and see what the fire is doing. Alert Wildfires, I think the website. But if you just type in Fire Cameras, Reno, it should come up and you can click on different cameras and we'll show you the view of that camera. And then that gives people a little bit more information. We live in such a technological, advanced society right now. We have apps, we have cameras, we have helicopters and firefighting equipment. But still, like I said, when it's still blowing 60 miles an hour and the fire starts, it's like, there's not a whole lot the fire department can do except for get people out of harm's way, try to figure out where it's going, make sure people are out of the way and then do their best to anchor flank and pinch. That's your basic Fire 101 right there. [Mary Meyer] I would say that one more time, anchor. [Bill Steward] Anchor is what the firefighters do that's making sure you have a strong anchor point. That means so wherever the fire starts, it usually goes into the pattern depending upon the fuels and the terrain. So you get a good anchor point, just like the military, you don't wanna be outflanked by the fire. So you get a great anchor point, something that's not gonna come back around and burn you. And then you flank it. So you take the left flank or the right flank and you basically, whether you go direct, that means right on the fire's edge or indirect, which is kind of outside the fire's edge, trying to use natural terrain and topography to help box it in. And then you pinch it off at the top. So you anchor it, you pinch it, or you flank it and you pinch it off. And that's try to, you try to put the fire in a box and making sure it doesn't go and escape that box. But as the wind does and the embers blow over that containment line or the slurry line or all the things that, the firefighters are trying to do ahead of time, the dozer line, the wet line, all the things that firefighters have done for years. The tactics obviously sometimes don't work out the way they should just because of the weather. And the wind has a huge part of that. [Mary Meyer] Okay, can you tell us a little bit more? I just wanna know the dozer line and the wet line, and what is that exactly? [Bill Steward] So a dozer is obviously a large dozer that will create. So you wanna eliminate the fuel from the fire. So if you have terrain where you can use a dozer, they'll put a dozer line in and the dozer can go direct right along the fire's edge and remove a lot of that fuel that's continuing to let the fire burn. So once the dozer puts that dozer line in, it's usually they put two, three, four, five blades wide, like they're putting in a freeway next to the fire's edge to make sure that it takes away all that fuel. And then the fire department can come in with the engines and work with that and put the wet line in. That's basically using water or foam as well. And that puts out the smoldering hotspots. So if a fire is still hot and those embers jump over that dozer line, hopefully it's made a wide enough path so that doesn't happen. And so that's the difference between a dozer line and a wet line. So putting down water or foam, making sure that it's cold. I mean, that's one of the things that we teach firefighters in our firefighter one-on-one classes, like when you're cold training on the fire, you put the back of your hand towards the fire and see if it's still hot because those fires can smolder for days or sometimes weeks. I mean, Alaska, it's crazy. The fire will actually go underneath the permafrost and burn for weeks or months and they won't even know it. Fire is amazing. I mean, once you get really geeked out about this stuff and learn all about the way that fire behaves, it's crazy. It's like anything though, but there's only a couple of ways to take care of it. It's either smother it, remove the oxygen or cool it down. And so those are the two avenues that we usually use the most. [Mary Meyer] Okay, so smother it or cool it down. Yeah, so Kevin, back to you, what are insurance companies, is there a specific list they look for? If they're gonna be in a house with some of these things, as Bill just mentioned? [Kevin Musico] Yeah, so start by taking the position that everybody, homeowner, insurance company, Bill, me, we all would like to see that you don't have to use your insurance because your home doesn't burn. And if you start thinking about your insurance and ensuring your home with that kind of tucked in the back of your head, you can see very clearly what the insurance companies are looking at. So they're looking up at a handful of things in general, and this applies anywhere. We're licensed in seven states. We do this in California and Arizona and Idaho and everywhere. And it applies anywhere globally. I wanna look at the systems in your house. The systems really dictate is something gonna fail in that home. So insurance companies look at the roof. They look at what it's made of. They look at how old it is. They look at the condition of that material. So shake roofs used to be very popular decades ago. Now, no insurance company wants to ensure a shake roof. Why? Because it's essentially dried wood. And an ember lands on the roof and it catches on fire. So they look up and say, if you take care of those systems and make sure they're non-combustible or new enough and in good enough condition, that's a plus. They look at generally four systems. They're looking at the roof. They're looking at plumbing. They're looking at your electrical system and what can contribute to sparks and things there. And they're looking at kind of your HVAC, your heating system. Those all insurance companies look at it. But today they've taken it a step further with what the stuff that Bill does. And they're looking at the defensible space and we tend to equate that to wildfire. Like, oh, well, I don't live in a wildfire zone so I don't need to worry about it. Well, I'm gonna give you an example. And we had a year and a half ago, we had the Palisades and Eaton fires in Southern California. Those fires redefined how insurance is really evaluating fire risk. And they also, it looked up and said, wow, there's something called conflagration. That's where a house will catch on fire and it heats up so hot, it catches the next house on fire and then the next one. And it's kind of a domino effect with fire. Well, nobody ever thought a city would burn. Yet Palisades had brick buildings that are gone. They had downtown areas that are not equated to WUI, wildland urban interface, but they all burned. And they gave a wake up call to the insurance industry. So they are now looking at a lot of things that Bill preaches and I preach. Take a look at the defensible zones, the zero to five feet that Bill shared a little bit about. There's a company out there called IBHS. They do analysis of environmental impacts and they provide that data to the insurance industry. And what they found is that if you take care of those zones as prescribed, like Bill audits for and shares so people can do themselves, you have up to almost an 80% less chance of your home catching on fire if you do those few things. Now, most people think, oh, I can't afford it. It's too much. Well, I got news for you. It's probably a couple thousand dollars and you can save your half a million, a million dollar home with a very small investment and a little bit of effort. So they're all looking at those things. They're looking at the vents on your home. They didn't look at before today, they look at it. They're looking at the zero to five foot zone. Do you have combustible plants or trees? They're looking, do you have trees that overhang your roof line? They're simple things that they're looking at, but if you take care of them, you one become more insurable. They like ensuring a home that's taken care of those things. They don't like ensuring homes that people don't and reduce the risk. Bill talks about his passion. I don't think he can put in words how passionate it is about it. I've seen him go through neighborhoods. I see him get so frustrated and please just do this one thing. I'm telling you, it'll help. It's little things like that that the insurance company looks at. It's not expensive, yet it really changes your insurability and the chances of you being canceled. Now, it's not gonna apply everywhere. There are some areas that insurance companies just flat out look up and say, you know what? We ensure too much in that zip code or that neighborhood. We just won't insure you. But there may be somebody else that does. There's a lot of insurance companies. Today, yours may have canceled you, but go to a broker and that broker may have another option that is willing to insure because they don't have very much insured there and they're willing to take that risk. So there are things. If you take Bill's list, and it's a small one, he does audits. If you're local in Reno, he can kind of do a walkthrough and show you what has to happen. And you look after the handful of things that the insurance companies are concerned about. The chances of you having a better experience with the insurance and the chances of you not having to use insurance are exponentially increased. [Mary Meyer] Yeah, and that's good news because I would say again that it does feel like this is such a huge problem that's beyond us and is the government doing the right thing? And is the earth getting too hot? And all these things that we have no control over. Which way is the wind blowing? No control over this. We don't have control like this. This fire is manmade. The hawk fire is manmade. So we have no control over so much of this. So to find the things that we do have control over and just take and have, make sure we are in control of those is great to me. Like, oh, we have some ability to prevent this. Feels like really good news. [Bill Steward] Yes. People, they can't feel like, oh, throw up their hands since I can't do anything. There are things people can do. And we've listed a bunch of them here today. One of the things I wanted to make sure that people know is like, Kevin is very humble too. And he'll basically, he does so much more than your local agent so far as insurance is concerned. He's got insurance for people that have been denied for months. He will dig into people's policies and talk to different carriers and do a lot more homework and digging in to people's personal property to make sure he can find him insurance. So I just want people to know that because, you know, state farm farmers, those guys, you know, they sit behind a desk and they just write policies all day long. They get paid on commissions, I think I'm not sure, but yeah, Kevin will go. He'll do deep dives into everybody's situation and figure out what he can do to make sure he gets them the best insurance possible. Happy birthday. Yeah, thanks. Is it your birthday? [Mary Meyer] Because it is your birthday. [Kevin Musico] Yeah, today's my birthday. Yes. [Mary Meyer] Happy birthday. Well, I was just going to ask some more detailed questions. I know you guys talked about this all day long. And but I'm, I'm, it's, I've heard a little bit from you guys, but I just want to make sure that it's like clear. If it's clear to me, then hopefully it's clear to everyone. So a question on the trees. So you're saying trees are fine. As long as they're, they're not overhanging, they're not within the five feet and they're not overhanging the roofs. [Bill Steward] Correct. Yes. A lot of insurance companies will say if they go by and now insurance companies are actually having people go out and do things that I do and look at these properties and go, hey, we're not touching that property. It's got, you know, multiple Jeffrey pines hanging over the roof line. All those pine needles are dropping onto their gutters or into the roofs or into their, you know, waterways for the water to run off. That's something that they won't touch. So the trees, yeah, it's tough because a lot of people like up in Incline Village. I mean, that whole area is in the forest. And so, and those are very mature trees and it's very expensive to take out trees. So making sure that at the very minimum may keep the tree branches cut back from the roof line. They've done all the due diligence. And then when they are building new homes, when they plant those trees, they're far enough away that those branches will not encroach upon the roof line. And different species of trees burn differently too. So, you know, but if you go through the forest, it's, you know, you don't want to have a bunch of matchsticks like the Davis Camp, the Davis Creek Fire. I mean, if anybody's listening to this around the Reno area, you look at the eastern side of the Sierras from Carson line up through Washoe Valley. Now we've had the Little Valley Fire that I was on in 2016. And now the Davis Fire that was back in 2023, four now. Yeah, so, and then now we have this summer, you know, it's like every summer we're having more and more fires, not only here, but, you know, if you look at watch duty, there's fires all throughout the western United States, from Canada down to Mexico, even Texas and Florida. It's a big issue. [Kevin Musico] Let me add to what Bill was saying about, you know, the trees and that, you know, everybody has somebody to look. Historically, insurance companies would, after you get a new policy, whether you're renewing one, you have an existing house or you're brand new, you just bought, you know, they used to spot inspect. You wouldn't really have somebody come to the house and actually inspect from the insurance company. Today, every company does it. And Bill's correct. What they do is that they're not going through with a fine tooth comb of your home, but they're driving by to make sure that what you said you were ensuring and the condition it's in is really what they're truly ensuring. So they're pulling by, driving up to the house, they'll walk around the exterior, but they're looking at, do you have trees? Are the trees too close? Are the branches too close to the roof? So Bill brought up, you know, what if you live up in the forest and there's trees everywhere? Insurance companies understand they're practical. They're not looking up and saying you can't have any tree within 100 feet of the house. But what they are doing is saying are the tree branches trimmed up high enough if a branch is overhanging any part of the roof line that it doesn't pose a risk. So they're making sure about that. So very easy for a homeowner today to go see if somebody were to drive by my house, would they say my house is at risk and say they're not going to renew? Well, go look. You've got a branch that's kind of growing over the tree, over the edge of your roof line. Trim back that branch. Just cut the branch off. You don't have to take the tree all the way out. If you have bushes and shrubs that are growing up and they're touching your house, probably not a good thing. Trim it back. Pull it out. It's little things like that. But every insurance company is sending somebody out to inspect and not to put fear with everybody. But the way the industry works, insurance companies have this kind of this grace period to go do that evaluation and decide, is that policy correct? And is that policy something that we want? And did the person being insured, were they honest with us? So within 30 days of you binding, say you've got a policy effective today, the insurance company has about 30 days to go out and look. And if they don't like what they see, because maybe you exaggerated that you took out all the trees or it's cleaned up, or maybe you said there wasn't debris in the yard and there was, they have the right to say, you know what? That's not what you said it was. We're not honoring that. We're canceling your policy. And that happens with captives where call up. Bill mentioned, oh yeah, they sit behind the desk, they write the policy. An underwriter back in Illinois is going to do the underwriting. And it's that grace period after you get your policy that they go check. Well, if they go find out that it's not exactly as presented, they cancel it. That's why you want to make sure that, you know, when you're when you're talking to a broker or talking to an agent, be as honest and forthright as you can. Don't exaggerate because you say, well, I think that the roof is seven years old when you know it's not. Because trust me, the inspectors can drive by, look at a roof, and they are pretty accurate. They understand degradation. They understand wear and tear. And they can say, you told us it was seven years old and it's more like 20 years old. I'm sorry, we're not ensuring you. Or we're going to require that you replace that roof. So very important to understand that somebody is looking and they're very simple steps to make sure you stay in an insurable status. [Bill Steward] Yeah, and I would tag on to that, too. A lot of people don't even realize, you know, they bought their home like me. I bought my house 10 years ago. Have I looked at my insurance policy? Yes, because I'm good friends with Kevin and I understand it. But replacement costs, too. You know, I mean, that's another huge thing so far as, you know, your house when it was built back in 2000 or whenever it was, the the amount of money it would cost for you to replace that house if it was burned down is not what it was 25 years ago. So a lot of people aren't are underinsured. And so that's another thing that Kevin helps with and like, hey, have you thought about this or your cars or anything else that you know he can do to help you? That's something that people don't realize. And then they're fighting with the insurance company for years about, you know, and documentation, right? Kevin, right, taking pictures of your valuables and making sure you have a good record of things and being honest and not trying to, you know, have insurance companies pay for things that you don't own or are telling the truth on. [Mary Meyer] Yeah, yeah. Just out of curiosity, is there what if you guys were replacing your roof and you're living in a fire zone, what would you use? What would you do? [Kevin Musico] Metal. It would cost a lot more money. Metal or tile? You know, concrete or ceramic tile. It's some stats. Asphalt, shingle, roofs, what we all kind of most houses have. You know, that's about probably 80 percent of the roofs in America have asphalt, shingle. Of that 80 percent, most of those roofs are more than I think it's more than more than two thirds are. Four years from their useful life, meaning they are they are at a point where they need to be replaced. They wear out, you know, a metal roof is pretty durable. It lasts a long time. A tile roof is also very durable. It lasts a long time. Asphalt, shingle degrades over time. If you're in a zone that gets intense heat and then snow and ice and rain and wind, all of those things get that asphalt, shingle to deteriorate quicker than normal. So if somebody were replacing, you sometimes look up and go, well, it's a little bit more to put a tile or metal roof on. But the life, the longevity of that and the and the future problems are minimized quite a bit. [Mary Meyer] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So we got the roofs do a roof that isn't can't if a different embers hit it, it's not going to catch on fire. Right. So not wood. Right. The metal, the tile and something like that is ideal. And then make sure around the home is for five feet is also not stone or something that is not made of. [Bill Steward] They will not burn. Yeah. [Mary Meyer] So yes, it hits it. And I remember Bill talking to you, you know, a couple of years ago and it really it don't it dawned on me. And I would say for anyone listening, I didn't grow up in a fire zone. Right. So the Midwest is not a fire zone. And then Tennessee and Georgia are they've had some fires, but it's like they're so wet. It's a very wet area. So it's not the same. And there's a lot of forest there. So I was just like, this is an education to me. Everything was an education. But the thing that you were saying is like, it's the embers that fly from the fire. And then here's maybe here's the fire here. But then way over here, all of a sudden, something catches on fire. Why did it get on fire? Has an embers flu found something that they. Yes, fire that was combustible. So the dry everything here is so dry. So that's that's that's really the threat. Yes. [Bill Steward] Yes, exactly. Because I mean, it's not out of ordinary for us to have relative humidity below 10 percent. We have a dry climate, which is which is great in some instances. But you think about the vegetation and anything and how dry it is. And then the wind comes along and dries it out even more one of the things that you touched on to Mary so far as your house, you know, think about your deck, too. A lot of people have nice wood decks and they have clearance underneath that deck. And there is, you know, all the wind blows, the leaves and the gutter and all the pine needles and stuff underneath the deck. Clean out underneath that. Anything that your house is attached to your deck, your fence. Another one is wooden fences. Those were built probably when your house was built. So they're just dry kindling. So if a fire starts, a lot of times we were kicking down fences to make sure the fence doesn't act like a wick for the fire to come and take out a house. And then, you know, there's all these little things that people don't realize that add up to a catastrophe. You know, your vents, your vegetation, your roof, your fences, your evacuation routes. If you live in a community that has one way in and one way out, you need to be able to get out there quickly. Fire hydrants, making sure that if you do live in a community, those fire hydrants are tested and inspected yearly, making sure that you have a good evacuation plan. So there's something called Ready, Set, Go that's a national program that shows people, hey, if you're ready, you know what to do. You're getting ashes raining down on your property. You probably should be leaving. You shouldn't be told to evacuate your property when you know you should have gone earlier. A lot of times people go and look at the fire and they're the looky loo that people would drive me crazy. And I'm trying to get our fire trucks into the fire and people are, you know, coming up and looking at the fire. Get out of the way. Let the fire department of police do their job and don't add fuel to the fire because you don't want to have fatality fires. We've already lost one person from the bug fire. And so, you know, you think about Lahaina, the Palisades, all these fires, you know, we can do a better job of making sure that when they do come, we're more prepared. [Mary Meyer] I'm getting a little emotional because a good friend and also a podcast guest lost his house. [Bill Steward] Oh, man. [Mary Meyer] Yeah, yeah. Just stuff like this is like I had my son here had a and this wasn't related to any fire, but they had a house fire. You know, so like, you know, this kind of thing is it does hit you. Yeah, yeah, no. [Bill Steward] And it's I mean, I can't tell you how many communities I would drive through and just the devastation, whether it's your pets and your memorabilia, all the things that you have in your house, right? Making sure that you have a plan and do whatever you can to make sure that, you know, your house can survive without intervention from the fire department. Do all the things we've been talking about. Call me, call Kevin, call somebody to come out and take a look at your property, go, can my house withstand a wildfire if something comes into my neighborhood? And like I said, it's not just that one house. It's the community to working together. So that's one of the biggest things that NFPA's Firewise does is it brings hopefully communities together to mitigate the risk, to make sure that they are prepared as much as possible. Because like across the street from me, I have an elderly neighbor who's on oxygen and she's in a wheelchair. So I know if we have a fire and we need to be evacuated, I'm going over there to help her to make sure that she can get out of her house way before the fire department gets there. [Mary Meyer] Community, community involvement. But a similar question to the roof. If you guys were building a fence or a deck, is there certain things you would choose? [Bill Steward] Yeah, yes. Nothing is stuck with wood. [Kevin Musico] Yeah, I mean, let me add because that's something that's big and Bill brought up that most certainly up in Reno, most of fences that are being constructed in new developments, they're all wood. And people go, oh gosh, I can't afford to change all of them. Even if you do nothing but change the fence that portion that connects to your house, out to the perimeter, change it to a metal fence, change it to something that's non-combustible. That way you stop that wicking that Bill's talking about. If a fire catches that fence on fire, it's just a fuse. It's going to burn right up to the house. So even if you've got existing, change that small piece of it, because I got news for you. Insurance companies, that's also another one that they're looking at. If they don't, they understand that people can't afford to change an entire fence that goes around their entire property. But they're looking and saying, well, you've got combustible material that's touching your home. Pull out that section, that 10 feet of section and put in a metal fence, put in something that's not combustible and you will, one, you reduce the risk to your home quite a bit. And two, you just took one of the things off of the insurance checklist that counts against. Yeah, yeah. Any thoughts on that, Bill? [Bill Steward] Yeah, no, I mean, you just you have to take a very overview of your property and also your neighbor, too, because, you know, I get calls all the time like, well, my neighbor, I'm like, OK, well, let's start with you first and see what's going on at your property and then, you know, talk to your neighbors. And that's one of the things it's like the society we live in, we always want to blame somebody, and that's not the way to do things. And hopefully it's getting to know your neighbors. So, yeah, in my community, I live in an HOA. That's another whole topic of discussion. You know, HOA's have certain rules and regulations. They have architectural review committees that you can only allow certain plants or certain vegetation within your community. But so far as, you know, taking a look at your whole property, you start with the roof. And this was this is really good. I mean, Kevin and I have been talking to realtors, too. When I was at Truckee Fire, we started a program that would go out and whenever you sold a property, whether it's real property or a vacant lot, you would have a fire inspection done. And now it's throughout the state of California. So whenever you sell or buy property in California, the fire department will come out and do an evaluation. And that goes into your escrow papers. And so that's something that real estate agents will talk to the buyer or the seller, depending upon which end of the spectrum you're on. And they'll say, yes, we had an inspection done. These things need to be addressed. And so they can negotiate on the table and say, OK, we'll put money aside in escrow for doing remediation. Or no, your house is great. You know, you don't need to do anything. And so whenever there's a transaction, we know that that data is captured for the real estate market and also helps the fire department. It also helps defensible space, insurance companies, all of them together know that that house has been inspected. So that's something that hopefully here in Nevada, we will try to get to because we don't really have anything in Nevada. So far as ordinances or public resource, 4291, there there's Chapter 60 that's in the code as far as if you have a new house, certain vegetation, trees, distance, all that stuff. But we've got to I mean, we have the legislative session coming up this year. Hopefully it'll be some bill draft requests talking about this because we know from the data that shows that hey, if we have, you know, not that I want to legislate this to death, but being able to have programs and teeth to show, hey, you can't have juniper surrounding your whole property, right? Or, you know, you can't just have a house is just completely overgrown because like I said, originally is that it's that one week link that could start a fire on a 60 mile an hour, 80 mile an hour day, the middle of July, 85, 90 degree temperature, 10 percent humidity. And then that one little house can take out a whole community because of the lack of due diligence. [Kevin Musico] Yeah, so Bill didn't mention the specifics, but the embers, they travel miles when a fire happens because of the winds and the heat and the conditions. So people think, oh, well, I don't need to worry about it. It's way over there. When you go look and, you know, we look at a lot of videos of fire. You can see a fire. And then if you get and like a satellite view, a live view, you can see that, wow, like two miles away, there's a little spot fire starting up. Well, those are embers that are falling into all of the things Bill's talking about, about, you know, the leaves or the pine needles in your gutter. An ember falls in there and guess what? It starts a fire. One goes through your vent. It starts a fire. That's why all that defensible space is so important. If you remove that risk, then you don't have an ember falling and potentially causing a fire. [Mary Meyer] And maybe that is where being a neighbor could be a really good thing if you have a neighbor that is just isn't capable of taking care of it for whatever reason. Right. That maybe they can help them or just, you know, being busy or financial issues, some whatever it might be. [Bill Steward] Yeah. And the fire department is doing a really good job trying to find those people that, you know, are fixed income, can't do it themselves or elderly. You know, that's something that they're all trying to do. But yeah, it's neighbors helping neighbors, you know, trying to make sure that they're prepared and educated as much as possible. [Mary Meyer] Yeah. So what can an HOA do? So to help mitigate fire, what rules could they change? [Bill Steward] Well, a lot of those HOA rules and the CC&Rs have been written when the development went in. So they're probably years, decades old. So there's something that most HOA's have, like an architectural review committee. It's a lot easier maybe to do things differently because a lot of HOA's will need 100% of all the homeowners to be able to agree to that. And that's probably not going to happen. But having a firewise community, going to nfpa.org or living with fire here in Nevada, being as educated as possible and finding the resources that they're able to. You know, there's all kinds of I have, you know, in the other room, I have the Amber Flyers, the Living with Fire program, the Home Defensible magazines. All these materials are available for people to be charged a lot of times. And it's organizing, you know. It's like the old Neighborhood Watch program. If everybody remembers that, you know, you'd have a specific person on each block that would kind of be kind of that captain for that block. And if something, you know, people were moving in to a vacant house or something went down that they needed to know about, that person would talk to their neighbors. We could do the same thing here with NFPA's Living with Fire. Making sure that, you know, I have renters in our community. A lot of times, you know, they don't pay as much attention to the home as the homeowners do. Letting them know, hey, you know, your trees are getting way too overgrown, your brush, all that stuff. And then the HOA all have managers who manage the community and get involved. Go to your HOA meetings. You know, you're paying dues every month to live in that community to keep it nice and upkeep. Go to the meetings, get involved. I was on the board here for our HOA for a while. We became an NFPA Firewise community. We created a firebreak behind our community because we have ND Energy power lines running right behind our fence. And so we actually went through and they talk about that dozer line. We cleared probably 60 feet away from the wooden fence that's underneath those power lines because of the power lines arc and create sparks and go down into the vegetation next to that home or that fence. Then it's all the things we've just been talking about. So the power company has a lot to do with this, too. Your fire department, your power company, your water, all all these people working together, trying to make sure that we're like I keep saying, you know, I use Ben Franklin because I use that on my cards all the time and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So we need to be very preventative in our thinking. [Mary Meyer] Tell me again, what is NFPA standard? [Bill Steward] So that's the National Fire Protection Association. It is a global organization. They do codes and standards. So most fire departments abide by NFPA standards. Whether it's for firefighting equipment personnel, they are an organization. If you just Google them, they have a wealth of information so far as firewise codes and standards and all that. So that's something that most people need to be aware of. They can go to their website and find all kinds of information to pull that from, you know, every May, the first Saturday of May, it's our Firewise Community Cleanup Day. So hopefully we can make sure that that gets out nationally. So the first Saturday right before Mother's Day, the weekend before Mother's Day, you go out and you clean up your neighborhood, whether it's bagging pine needles or talking to your neighbors and stuff like that. So that's something that we really try to impress upon communities that get more organized and educated. [Mary Meyer] Kevin, do you know of anything that insurance wise or HOA that they would be looking at or benefit or detract? [Kevin Musico] Yeah, so HOA's are kind of an interesting animal in the insurance world. Most HOA's have what's called a master policy that covers common areas and, you know, it has a bunch of things that it does outside of your homeowner's policy. When you live in a condo, for example, insurance companies are starting to pay a lot more attention to the home master policies and what they're covering. And in particular, they look at, you know, the retention accounts for those HOA's to take care of problems. The insurance companies for you and your individual space are now giving more weight to what those master policies say. They want to make sure that the HOA has got adequate reserves in case there's an event that needs to be fixed. And they want to they take a look and you as a homeowner ought to know what are the coverages and deductibles on that HOA and what happens if I happen to be impacted by some sort of claimable event in my unit or my home. Do I have a portion of that policy that I'm responsible for, the deductible? Most people don't realize that those deductibles can be $50,000 or more. And if you let's say you you and one other neighbor are only impacted and it's a claimable event on that HOA policy, well, guess who they're hitting up for that deductible? It starts to intertwine quite a bit more. There's also some new things that impact a homeowner around HOA's. There's Fannie and Freddie, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They're kind of the backing behind most home mortgages. In their guidelines, they used to be that they had 10 percent of your dues would be put in a reserve account. In January of 27, they're changing that and requiring it to be 15 percent. And there's some math and some technical parts of how that works, that it's not a hard and fast, but an HOA needs to be aware of it. Now, why does it matter for an individual and a homeowner? If you want to go sell your home and you're in an HOA that doesn't meet that requirement, you may not be able to get the person buying your house may not be able to get a mortgage. And now all of a sudden your home value goes down because it's not sellable. And it's it's something that when you're looking at your home, you're looking at your coverages, you need to also consider, well, what is my HOA cover? How does my policy work with that HOA? And are we in compliance that I might be inadvertently affected? So those it's important. It's not anything that you have to get crazy about, but stay informed. Understand what the HOA policy is. Understand what their regulations and rules and guidelines are, because that could help you. You know, if you aren't keeping up and the HOA requires you to do some sort of landscape maintenance and you don't keep that up. Well, guess what? Their insurance is going to be aware of it. Your insurance is going to be aware of it. And that HOA now is impacting your personal property much more directly. [Mary Meyer] Yeah. And that also means individual people. I know when I when I was had HOA's I did not want to take the time to be on the board or go to meetings. I was like, it is becoming more and more critical to do that, just to make sure that things are running the way they're supposed to. And it's legal. And yeah, I had the last place in Atlanta. There's so many issues with running the HOA. And that's what we're talking about. But it also is within the scope of that's another thing you can do that is within your within your power. You know, it is to go be aware of what's happening, because that's that's a community is your shared space. So there is, of course, is that got to be aware. [Bill Steward] Yes. Yeah. So because those people turn over, you know, they have elections every year sometimes. And so you got it. And if those people have agendas or they have a reason why they want to get on the board, they can be political like everything. [Mary Meyer] Yeah. Yeah. Or if they're not managing money, if there's some issue with someone's stealing money or whatever it is, that's all. [Bill Steward] Yes. [Mary Meyer] There's a fire. So being aware of the community is certainly a huge thing. Do you think HOA's have an ability to get more fire hydrants? Is that something within their power or not? [Bill Steward] No. So fire hydrants, those go in long before the buildings go up. All the dirt work and the grading and the fire hydrants and electrical. And that's something to PG&E is now, you know, obviously on the hook for a lot of fires in the past few years. And instead of having above ground lines or putting lines underground, it's a lot more expensive. It's like 10 times the amount that it would be to run power lines above ground. So fire hydrants that you can't put more. You can't just go, hey, I need more fire hydrants. That that those are in place long before the community is developed. But like in the rural areas, a lot of people live out in the, you know, like here for like Red Rock and Gerlach and some of these outlying areas. They don't have fire hydrants. They have volunteer fire departments. And a lot of times they have limited resources and water. And so one of the things I would recommend is that those people out there put up their own standalone water system, whether it's for sprinklers, creating a water curtain when the fire does hit or to pull water from for the fire department to help put out fires around their community. Because I guarantee you, you know, a lot of the areas that were impacted by the hawk fire, they didn't have fire hydrants. And so we have to bring water tenders, which are big trucks with only water with, you know, anywhere from 25 to 3000 gallons of water. And when you have a fire hose spraying 100 gallons a minute, you guys can do the math about how long that water is going to last. So making sure that people realize if you're going to live in the areas outside of public, you know, response times. Yeah, it's going to impact not only your ability to survive a fire, but also for insurance. Because, you know, Kevin looks at that stuff and says, well, you're being protected by a volunteer fire department. Those people have jobs. So all of this stuff adds up. I mean, there's so many different layers and it's like each one, each door you open opens up other doors. And so that's why it's not just going, why didn't the fire department protect my property? There's so many things that go along with this. [Mary Meyer] And so all these different layers that people do on their own is a makes a big difference. [Bill Steward] Yeah, it all helps. Yeah. [Mary Meyer] So if someone is living outside of where there is, you know, the fire hydrants in the fire department nearby, where can they go for more resources on to develop the water curtain and different things you just talked about? [Bill Steward] So I would have them reach out to their county emergency planner. Each county has usually an emergency manager. Kelly Echeviyas, the Washoe County emergency manager. So she's in charge of the whole county. So depending upon where you live, and this is for somebody that may be watching this or listening to this and thinking about buying a house, do your due diligence ahead of time. Call Kevin or myself ahead of time because we can save you a lot of time and a lot of money before you actually made an offer on a property. Because when you make an offer and you know, you know, everybody loves that. Oh, it's a dream house. I got to have this house. But they're like, oh my gosh, the electrical hasn't been touched in years. A roof needs to be replaced and all these things. And then they don't know that. Then they're making an offer and then they can't get insurance. And they can't get insurance. They can't get a mortgage. So all these things add up. You know, that's why people need to be educated because if they don't know, they're going to be spending lots of time and money trying to figure out what they need to do and the places out in the rural, they are on their own. They want to live out there for a reason, but they also need to know how to protect themselves, whether that's their stand alone, water supply, making sure their house is built as strong as possible, making sure they don't have all the junipers and all the flammable fuel next to their property. It all depends. Each one of these kind of scenarios has its own problems in setbacks or good things, right? [Mary Meyer] So for sure. I thought a lot about, you know, there's other building materials outside of wood. I mean, there is. Why don’t we use something outside of wood.. So maybe that's something that becomes more common a great point. [Bill Steward] Yes. [Mary Meyer] Doesn't make any sense to me. [Bill Steward] No, you know, because once you get past the wood siding or the plaster or stucco and, you know, all of our homes are still stick built. And those are all two by four frames and, you know, so yeah. [Mary Meyer] There are other ways. Well, this is so much good information and I'm going to make sure all these links are also in our show notes. So anyone who wants to go find more information can do that as we close. What what else have we missed that we can throw out? [Kevin Musico] I'll start. I'll just leave everybody with the message that we sometimes don't like to hear. But just take personal responsibility when it comes to insurance. The insurance carriers just want an individual that they're insuring to take some personal responsibility. It's not always the insurance company that has to pay for everything. You have to maintain it. Insurance is there to solve a risk problem. There's a big gaping risk that's too expensive for an individual. And the insurance company steps up and says, for a little bit of money, I'll take on that risk. They aren't there for you to replace a crack window every time it happens. Or, gee, I had something happen and now I want the insurance company to pay. Maintain your stuff. Understand some of the basic things you can do to help protect your home. And at the end, it works out for everybody. [Bill Steward] I use an analogy about think about we have hailstorms around here, too. And think about if your house was being attacked by hail and instead of hail, those are little pieces of fire. And when it's raining down on your property, your roof, your gutters, your vegetation, all the things around your house, will it survive? And that's one of the things to try to impress upon people when it's a junipers, a vegetation, your roof, your gutters, all that stuff. There's all kinds of resources out there. Obviously, nfpa.org is a great one. UNR is Living With Fire is another one. WatchDuty is the app that all people should have to know what's going on. And the National Weather Service, they obviously post red flag warnings. Just know, be diligent and like Kevin said, you know, know what's going on. Your property, your area, your community, because I'll go back to Ben Franklin at the same time. You know, it's an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I think those are really good words to sum up what we can do. And yeah, I just thank you for letting us talk and being part of your program. [Mary Meyer] Absolutely. And I have one more question I just thought about as we close. So the get ready, go plan. [Bill Steward] Ready, set, go. [Mary Meyer] Ready, set, go plan. So that is for people that you know you're in a maybe a more dangerous fire area. What what's part of it? So. [Bill Steward] So it's like three stages. It goes into evacuation, but it also is a document that a lot of people have throughout the county. We have it here in Washoe County and it has a check sheet. So that's another thing that UNR does. They have a check sheet of your evacuation, what you need to do, you know, having access to a garden hose for the fire department to possibly use to help fill up their fire truck, making sure their garage door is down because a lot of people will leave and leave the garage door open. The race that go program is is a national program that helps people prepare and it's a document that you can actually get online, whether it's here in Washoe County, other places may have. I believe don't quote me on this, but I believe it's becoming a national program so far as that kind of language. Ready, set, and go. So being ready for fire when it comes, being set in your house, making sure you have your dog, your food for your dog, your medication. And then when you do need to go, how do you let people know where you're going to be? So like for here, if I was to be evacuated, everybody knows we'll go down to the nugget because cell towers will go down. You won't be able to use your cell phones if it's two o'clock in the morning, like that little valley fire was. People will know where to go or how to get a hold of them and then those people are moving or trying to come into an area that's already overrun with chaos and fire and people loading up their forces and everything else. So just have a plan and know the plan and practice your plan. [Mary Meyer] I appreciate that. Thank you guys both for coming on. I so appreciate your time. And I'll enjoy the rest of your day. [Bill Steward] Thanks, Mary.