{"id":16154,"date":"2026-03-10T10:34:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=16154"},"modified":"2026-03-10T10:37:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:37:55","slug":"wildfire-insurance-rates-soar-for-wyoming-rural-and-vacation-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/03\/10\/wildfire-insurance-rates-soar-for-wyoming-rural-and-vacation-properties\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire Insurance Rates Soar For Wyoming Rural And Vacation Properties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The juicing of everyone continues. Consequently, it’s actually part of Agenda 21 (Agenda 2030 is related) to move everyone from rural areas to eventual smart prison cities, and then limiting your movement. If you look around in major cities, massive apartment complexes have and are going up. When the OCGFC said you’d own nothing and rent everything, they weren’t playing. Through in the climate change deception along with arson fires on really windy days, they have ravaged California and other states, and they’re not done. They want to extract as much wealth as possible and take over properties, moving people to the cities. Rosa Koire, an expert witness on property value for eminent domain in California, saw what was happening early on and does an excellent job of explaining it in the video in this post<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/cowboystatedaily.com\/2026\/03\/09\/wyoming-getaway-properties-hit-by-wildfire-insurance-spike\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Insurance rates have soared for rural and vacation properties across Wyoming due to wildfire risk designations. \u201cMy insurance tripled from one year to the next just because they had changed the fire rating,\u201d Taft Love told Cowboy State Daily.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By David Madison<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Insurance
Insurance rates have soared for rural and vacation properties across Wyoming due to wildfire risk designations. \u201cMy insurance tripled from one year to the next just because they had changed the fire rating,\u201d Taft Love told Cowboy State Daily. (Courtesy photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The new home sits on the north end of Glendo Reservoir \u2014 a two-story stick-built retreat with a great loft and open floor plan designed for entertaining and family gatherings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From its windows, you can gaze across the water at the cliffs on the far shore, beneath enormous Wyoming skies. The nearest trees are more than 100 yards away \u2014 400 to 500 yards in some directions \u2014 with open prairie all around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s also remote enough to raise concerns about a fast-moving wildfire and the local fire department\u2019s ability to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnybody that\u2019s outside of that five-mile buffer from a fire station is getting a struggle with insurance, and insurance costs have risen dramatically,\u201d said Sen. Taft Love, R-Cheyenne, who built the custom home for a client through his construction company. \u201cAnd so that very much is going to create an issue for a lot of people in Wyoming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The house sits about 5.5 miles from the nearest fire station \u2014 just outside the buffer that many insurers use to determine coverage eligibility. One quote came back at $40,000 a year. Love tried to extend his existing construction insurance policy on the property, and his carrier refused citing the property\u2019s fire designation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heading into the spring and summer building and vacation seasons, if you\u2019re thinking about buying or building a log cabin, a lake house, or some other type of rural property in Wyoming \u2014 get ready for a ballooning insurance bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not So Remote<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Glendo project wasn\u2019t Love\u2019s only insurance headache. His own aviation property east of Cheyenne \u2014 at Skyview Airpark, with an airplane hangar, office and apartment building \u2014 sits four miles from the Hillsdale Volunteer Fire Department, comfortably within the five-mile buffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It still wasn\u2019t enough to hold the line on cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy insurance tripled from one year to the next just because they had changed the fire rating,\u201d Love told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cIt\u2019s something that had been insured before. It was with that company already. It shouldn\u2019t have been a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From one corner of the state to the other, property insurance rates continue to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leah Vermeire, a producer at Tegeler & Associates in Dubois, insures commercial and personal properties for some of Wyoming\u2019s most scenic alpine properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe availability is still there. It is just expensive,\u201d said Vermeire<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Premiums have risen roughly 200% to 300% over the past decade, Vermeire estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Log cabins add an extra layer of difficulty on top of fire risk. When a log cabin catches fire, it\u2019s curtains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a log cabin, a partial loss is essentially an entire loss,\u201d Vermeire said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just replace one piece of drywall or one corner of the house or one part of the exterior.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A neighbor of Vermeire\u2019s on Union Pass found out exactly how crushing the premiums can be. The neighbor was non-renewed by an existing carrier, came to Vermeire for quotes, received options \u2014 and then chose to go without coverage rather than pay the premium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The property, a secondary log cabin home, is worth around $900,000. The annual premium came in at over $10,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyoming is not an island when it comes to fire risk pricing. Catastrophic fires in California, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, and floods across the country all feed into the national insurance pool that Wyoming property owners draw from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe frequency and severity of natural disasters nationwide is also impacting the insurance market here,\u201d Vermeire said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Factor<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The insurance affordability squeeze hitting Wyoming is part of a trend that national regulators have been tracking for years. The 2024 \u201cNational Climate Resilience Strategy for Insurance,\u201d issued by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, warned that the growing number and scope of severe disasters have raised questions \u201cabout the sustainability of insurance availability and the challenges for consumers seeking insurance to be able to find and maintain it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An NAIC member, Wyoming Insurance Commissioner Jeff Rude participates in the group\u2019s ongoing discussions about affordability and availability across the country. The NAIC strategy calls for a first-ever national data collection on insurance availability and affordability, and for prioritizing pre-disaster mitigation \u2014 the kind of forest health work that Wyoming\u2019s legislature has been debating this session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Wyoming Department of Insurance, Deputy Commissioner Tana Howard said the forces driving insurance costs higher are numerous and layered \u2014 and that no single rule applies to all properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInsurance is not one size fits all,\u201d Howard said. \u201cThe cost of a home depends on when it was built, how it was built, what codes, where it\u2019s at \u2014 obviously a home in town has a little less risk if it\u2019s sitting right next to a fire station, as opposed to something 30 miles out of town that is a long ways from a fire station or any type of water hydrant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insurers are also factoring in the rising cost of labor and materials when calculating what it would cost to rebuild a property after a loss \u2014 a reality that has only sharpened since the COVID-era inflation spike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legislative Talks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The insurance burden on rural property owners got a public moment on Feb. 24 before the Senate Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee, during testimony on House Bill 78 \u2014 a $3 million forest health grant program that passed the panel 5-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBetween Glendo and Douglas, we\u2019ve got a property that we had been building and working on \u2014 lodge and cabins \u2014 and they are almost impossible to get insurance right now because of the fire designations throughout the entire West,\u201d Sen. Love told the committee on Feb. 24. \u201cIt\u2019s changed everybody\u2019s abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testifying on behalf of the Wyoming County Commissioners Association, Natrona County Commissioner Dave North connected the state\u2019s unmanaged forest and grassland fuels directly to rising insurance rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s across the state,\u201d North said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be worse and worse. If you can\u2019t go in there and suppress those fires, they\u2019re looking for excuses \u2014 especially after everything that happened in California \u2014 to cancel our insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a follow-up interview with Cowboy State Daily, Love said he was happy to see House Bill 78 \u2014 the Forest Health Grant Program \u2014 pass during the recent session. It supports fuel reduction and wildfire mitigation work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the insurance companies look at these things, we need to have conversations with them if we\u2019re going to start being more responsible and the federal government\u2019s going to be more responsible with managing our fuel loads and making sure that we have appropriate fire breaks and making sure that we\u2019re doing the things necessary to prevent loss,\u201d said Love. \u201cThat should come with some savings on the insurance side as we become proactive in that management.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love also acknowledged the problem reaches beyond cabins and getaway homes into Wyoming families\u2019 health coverage as well \u2014 and that a small group of lawmakers is already building the case for action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMyself and a few other legislators have started the conversation on this,\u201d Love said. \u201cWe\u2019ve put some interim ideas in to look at what we do, not only just for insuring structures in the rural remoteness of Wyoming, but also for health insurance. We\u2019re going to have to do some things to answer some questions in Wyoming about insurance \u2014 and hopefully be able to draft some legislation to start helping.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The juicing of everyone continues. Consequently, it’s actually part of Agenda 21 (Agenda 2030 is related) to move everyone from rural areas to eventual smart prison cities, and then limiting your movement. If you look around in major cities, massive apartment complexes have and are going up. When the OCGFC said you’d own nothing and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16157,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16154\/revisions\/16157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}