Over the past decade, wildfires and extreme heat have destabilized California in ways both dramatic and subtle: 4.2 million acres burned last year alone, most of the state is experiencing emergency levels of drought, and heat-related deaths are on the rise. These climate-driven disasters have worsened the state’s housing crisis, as insurance in risky areas becomes unaffordable or unavailable entirely: California homeowners living in areas at high risk for wildfires have seen their premiums rise by as much as 500 percent.

For the past two years, the California Insurance Working Group, a team of environmental advocates, researchers, and insurance industry representatives, has been meeting at the behest of the state legislature to answer a set of particularly thorny questions about insurance coverage in the Golden State. Last week, the group released an 88-page report outlining a slew of recommendations to better protect Californians from wildfires, flooding, and extreme heat. The group’s recommendations include strengthening building standards to better withstand wildfires, encouraging the uptake of renters insurance, and better communicating climate-related risks to the public through maps and other tools. The report argues that these solutions will help narrow the state’s “protection gap” — the difference between the actual damage caused by a natural disaster and the insured losses.

Michael Peterson is a former legislative staffer who now works for the California Insurance Commission, heading the executive agency’s efforts on climate and sustainability. In a conversation with Grist, Peterson outlined the protection gap identified by the working group, argued that extreme heat should be recognized as a climate threat similar to hurricanes and wildfires, and made the case for limiting eligibility to the state’s insurer of last resort for wildfires.

Read the full article about extreme heat by Naveena Sadasivam at Grist.