Cal. PUC § 719 — California Code / Code puc / Division 1 / Part 1 / Chapter 4 / Article 1 / Section 719
Section 719
Status: in_force

(a) For purposes of this section, terms used in this section shall have the same meaning as those terms are defined in Section 3280.

(b) On or before April 1, 2026, the administrator, in consultation with the commission, the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, the Department of Insurance, the Office of Emergency Services, and the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and with feedback solicited from stakeholders, including, but not limited to, ratepayer advocates, insurance policyholder advocates, electrical corporations, insurance companies, and claimant attorneys, shall prepare and submit to the Legislature, and to the Governor, a report that evaluates and sets forth recommendations on new models or approaches that mitigate damage, accelerate recovery, and responsibly and equitably allocate the burdens from natural catastrophes, including catastrophic wildfires, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, across stakeholders, including insurers, communities, homeowners, landowners, governments, electrical corporations, and local publicly owned electric utilities, to complement or replace the fund.

(c) The report shall include specific recommendations, including, but not limited to, on all of the following:

(1) Accessibility and affordability of property insurance in California in light of the accelerating costs of climate change-induced and other natural catastrophes.

(2) An evaluation of alternative structures to socialize risk of damage from natural catastrophes, including catastrophic wildfires, that most efficiently and expeditiously compensate those harmed while maintaining accessibility to property insurance and access to safe, affordable, and reliable energy for Californians.

(3) Additional mitigation measures and technology solutions to reduce the risk of ignition of wildfires and limit the spread of and damage from wildfires.

(4) Financing, insurance, and other mechanisms to expedite recovery for communities impacted by natural catastrophes, including wildfires, and to expedite compensation for property loss.

(5) Additional measures to benefit ratepayers through reducing costs caused by fiscal uncertainty while holding electrical corporations accountable for improving safety and reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

(6) Options for enactment of a streamlined, low-cost mechanism to provide injured parties full compensation for damages resulting from wildfires.

(7) An analysis of the potential benefits and potential negative impacts on homeowners related to reasonable limitations on changes to recoveries in wildfire litigation arising from ignitions caused by electrical or gas utility infrastructure, including, but not limited to, restrictions on the recovery of attorney’s fees, limitations on economic and noneconomic damages, including claims by insurers, limitations on public entity claims, limitations on claims by those outside the fire perimeter, and aggregate limitations on liability per event.

(8) Options for enactment of programs to reduce the risk of wildfires spreading and becoming high-severity catastrophes, including improved state and local catastrophic event response capability, home fire risk reduction standards, vegetation management practices, and communitywide wildfire hardening requirements.

(9) Options for reducing the economic damage resulting from wildfires and potentially other catastrophic natural disasters, including minimum insurance requirements, mechanisms to ensure insurance rates appropriately account for home and community hardening measures taken, special assessments to support infrastructure investments and emergency response, and improved land use planning.

(10) Options for new models to complement or replace the fund, such as state-supported property insurance, or reinsurance, or both insurance and reinsurance, for wildfires and potential catastrophic natural disasters; a mutual wildfire insurance fund; a publicly supported financial safety net to enhance long-term resilience and utility and insurance rate affordability; and improvements to the fund to enhance its durability.

(d) The administrator may retain consultants, academic experts, and other professionals as may be necessary for the efficient preparation of the report pursuant to this section and may compensate those retained consultants, academic experts, and other professionals using the Wildfire Fund assets or account assets.

(e) (1) The report to be submitted pursuant to this section shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.

(2) Pursuant to Section 10231.5 of the Government Code, this section is repealed on January 1, 2030.