Experts find Kern County residents could pay hundreds more annually in home insurance premiums due to climate change

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — A new study shows that California’s inland counties will face significant insurance premium jumps as climate change continues to send the cost of home insurance soaring.

Although the report commissioned by the Coalition for the Insurable Future predicts that northern inland counties will see the highest premium hikes by 2035, Kern County is anticipated to see home insurance premium rates rise between 44 and 94% annually.

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That means that Kern County residents could end up paying between $796 to $1,694 more annually in their home insurance premiums in just nine years.

The Coalition’s report – which was conducted by economic and strategy consultant firm Mandala Partners – found that California’s rising insurance premiums are primarily driven by wildfire risks.

Chloe Demrovsky, member of the Coalition for an Insurable Future, said a key reason inland counties have more risk is because the region’s wild land urban interface is where the edges of residential development and undeveloped wild land meet.

She said many private insurers are also “simply pulling out of these markets as they are no longer viable at prices that consumers want to pay, and that drives more people onto the state-run insurance programs, like California’s FAIR plan.

California is projected to see premium increases between 41 and 88% by 2035 and between 106 and 225% by 2050.

On average, home insurance costs in California in 2025 is about $2,403 annually. That number is projected to increase between $3,394 and $4,511by 2035.

The counties identified as most at-risk by the analyses include Mariposa County, which is predicted to see a 231% premium increase, Shasta County with a 213% increase and Trinity County, which is expected to see a 204% premium increase by 2035.

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Inyo and San Bernardino counties, neighbors to Kern County, are anticipated to see premium hikes up to 108% and 105% by 2035.

Demrovsky said the rising premium costs are an example of a “polycrisis,” when one crisis cascades into the next.

“Higher premiums are a reflection of rising costs, and there are a number of factors driving increased prices,” she said. “Another less visible example is that the cost of reinsurance, which is essentially insurance for insurers, that helps spread their risk across a wider pool is also increasing as disasters are becoming increasingly expensive, larger and more frequent. The polycrisis is a vicious spiral.”

But the study not only highlighted regions at risk for higher premiums, but also found that in the coming decades, some Californians will likely be paying more for home insurance than they do in property taxes.

The study comes as much of the state is in high risk zones.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported over 8,000 wildfires had broken out across in 2025, burning more than 500,000 acres across the state.

So far this year, there have been 938 wildfires across California, and 11,067 acres have burned. As of Wednesday, the department is fighting two active wildfires in Fresno and Orange counties.

This comes as home insurance rates have been set to jump in several states, including California, because of severe weather events.

Just a few years ago, insurance company State Farm said they would no longer write new insurance policies for Californians, and that Geico Insurance and Progressive have pulled back on insurance advisements in the state.

The topic of rising home insurance – and the struggle for some Californians to have it altogether – was one of the topics broached in Tuesday’s governor’s debate that aired on CBS News.

Xavier Becerra, former California attorney general and candidate for governorship, said he would declare the high insurance rates and homeowners losing their insurance as a state of emergency.

“This affordability crisis is hitting every family, and we have to act as if this were a break-glass moment, and so I would declare that state of emergency,” he said during the debate.

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Matt Mahan, mayor of San Jose, said part of the solution is to require insurance companies to “appropriately” price the risk of homes when writing policies in California.

“The government in Sacramento created so many restrictions, including taking over a year to approve any rate changes, prohibiting insurance companies from using climate data to project future costs that they stopped writing new policies,” Mahan said. “The answer is, bring them back, force them to compete, allow them to appropriately price risk, and then hold government accountable for maintaining the wild land, reducing all that vegetation and wildfire risk, so we don’t have these catastrophic fires.”

Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff and candidate for governor running as a Republican, said California’s FAIR Plan has been a failure.

The FAIR Plan – or the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements plan – is an insurance pool that provides insurance policies to Californians who cannot get private home insurance because their property has been deemed too risky to insure.

“The insurance companies left because the insurance companies can’t be forced into bankruptcy by the state,” Bianco said during the debate.

Demrovsky said in the end, higher costs for homes can “dampen home value.”

“Prospective buyers factor this into their offers and this over time can lock people into homes that have dropped in value and worse, may even be uninsurable which means they can’t transfer any of the risk at all,” she said. “It can also lead to coverage gaps in which people opt for bare bones plans that don’t provide adequate coverage and they may not even realize it until it’s too late.”

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