A smarter risk profile starts before fire season.

Mitigation services designed to reduce risk.

Problem

Wildfire losses have fundamentally changed the math of property and infrastructure insurance.

Carriers are pulling out of high-risk markets. Premiums are climbing faster than asset owners can absorb. Underwriters are under growing pressure to justify continued coverage on portfolios with real, documented exposure. The challenge isn't just the fires themselves. It's that most insureds arrive at renewal without credible evidence that anything has changed on the ground. 

Vegetation management reports and defensible space assessments tell part of the story, but they don't address the underlying question: what has actually been done to reduce the probability and severity of loss? When that question goes unanswered, the options narrow. Carriers increase rates, impose sublimits, or exit the market entirely. Asset owners are left holding the risk.

California FAIR Plan growth and average premium increases, '18 to '24

FAIR Plan policies (thousands) Non-renewals in high-risk ZIP codes (index, 2018=100)
FAIR Plan policies grew from 154,000 in 2018 to over 350,000 in 2024. Non-renewals in high-risk ZIP codes rose 31% between 2020 and 2022.

Sources: California Department of Insurance, 2023 Annual Report; California FAIR Plan Association, Policy Count Data 2018–2024; Insurance Information Institute, "Facts + Statistics: Wildfires," 2023; Marsh McLennan, "Insurance Market Report: Property," 2023. Non-renewal index is calculated relative to 2018 baseline using California DOI reported non-renewal figures for high wildfire risk ZIP codes.

Solution

A framework that supports ongoing insurability.

Matrix Wildfire gives underwriters something they can work with: a documented, repeatable pretreatment program that materially alters fire behavior across the insured asset before fire season begins. Using the Matrix GUARDIAN platform, Matrix Wildfire applies a rain-resistant fire retardant barrier across corridors, utility rights-of-way, and high-value private land at a scale that manual methods cannot match. Treatment is delivered on a planned seasonal schedule, with records that demonstrate coverage area, application date, and retardant specifications. For insurers, that's the difference between a self-reported mitigation claim and a defensible, verified program. 

The retardant itself is nontoxic, non-corrosive, and rain-resistant for up to six months. It reduces flame length, slows fire spread, and lowers radiant heat transfer to structures and infrastructure within the treated zone. These aren't theoretical outcomes. They're measurable changes to the conditions that determine loss severity. 

What This Means for Carriers and Underwriters 

Pretreatment shifts wildfire from an unbudgeted catastrophic event to a managed seasonal risk. For portfolio underwriters assessing large infrastructure assets, pretreated properties represent a fundamentally different risk profile than untreated ones. Coverage decisions, premium structures, and sublimit thresholds can be applied with greater confidence when there is documented evidence that the insured has taken material action. For carriers working with asset owners who are struggling to maintain coverage eligibility, Matrix Wildfire's seasonal service model provides a framework that supports ongoing insurability rather than a one-time fix.

FAQs

How we help insurance underwriters

Matrix Wildfire's retardant treatment reduces the three primary drivers of structural loss in a wildfire: flame length, rate of fire spread, and radiant heat transfer to structures within the treated zone. Applied before fire season, the retardant creates a chemical barrier that interrupts fuel continuity and slows ignition energy, giving suppression crews more time to respond before losses become unrecoverable. For underwriters, that translates to a measurable reduction in probable maximum loss (PML) scenarios on treated properties.

Each treatment program produces a documented record of coverage area, application date, retardant type, and treatment specifications. This gives underwriters and risk managers verifiable evidence of a proactive mitigation program rather than a self-reported claim. Matrix Wildfire's team includes staff with insurance industry backgrounds who can work directly with carriers on documentation formats, compliance language, and the reporting frameworks that support continued coverage eligibility.

Vegetation management reduces available fuel load but does not address ignition risk or fire behavior once a fire is burning. Pretreatment retardant works differently: it alters how fire behaves when it reaches a treated area, slowing spread and reducing intensity regardless of how the fire started. The two approaches are complementary, but pretreatment provides the only chemical intervention that actively changes fire behavior at the point of contact. For insureds with large infrastructure footprints, pretreatment at scale is also substantially faster to deploy than manual vegetation clearing across the same coverage area.