§2.GAO study regarding insurance for wildfire damage
This section directs the Comptroller General of the United States (GAO), in consultation with the Director of the Federal Insurance Office and state insurance regulators, to conduct a study analyzing wildfire risk and insurance coverage for wildfire damage. The study must address (1) wildfire risk assessment, including trends in declarations under the Fire Management Assistance Grant program (42 U.S.C. 5187) (i.e., presidential assistance, including grants, for mitigating fires on public or private forest or grassland threatening major disaster-level destruction) with respect to geography, costs, probability, and frequency; mitigation practices to reduce insurance costs and risks; existing federal and state risk measurement programs and their effectiveness; and the need for a national wildfire risk map; (2) the existing state of homeowners and commercial property insurance coverage for wildfire damage over the 10-year period ending on the date of enactment, including private insurers' rate and cost-sharing adjustments (after inflation), policy non-renewals, contributing factors, curtailments or exclusions, and conditions for continuing coverage (e.g., property hardening or landscaping); (3) state insurance regulators' responses to rate increases, cost-sharing, or coverage exclusions (e.g., rate regulation, moratoria, mandatory coverage, residual markets, or subsidies) and their effects on availability, affordability, and sustainability; and (4) challenges in underwriting wildfire risk, including correlated risks, estimation difficulties, effects of housing development in high-risk areas, solvency threats, affordability limits, potential government responses (e.g., forest management, data improvements, reinsurance), and policy options if private insurers exit the market.