Could Colorado’s New Home Insurance Bill Catch On In Other States?

Industry experts are weighing whether a new home insurance bill introduced in Colorado could spur other states to similar action, noting increasing appetite among the American populace for government officials to step in.

Colorado House Bill 1182, which passed last year and is due to come into effect this July, will require insurance companies to acknowledge climate risk mitigation work done by homeowners when setting premiums and determining whether to provide coverage.

The bill is expected to encourage transparency in premium pricing, promote more accurate risk scores and possibly lower premiums for eligible homeowners. For the average Coloradan, for whom home insurance has significantly increased in recent years, this price point is perhaps the largest concern.

“There’s an increasing awareness of the home insurance crisis as being one that requires immediate and urgent responsiveness from elected officials … I certainly think there’s more to come in terms of the opportunities for how to take lessons like this bill in Colorado and apply it to other states. But it is certainly something that the electorate is growing in its awareness of and agitating for more action on,” Grace Adcox, senior climate strategist, Data for Progress, said.

She made the comments during a recent press call alongside fellow panelists Dave Jones, former California insurance commissioner; Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, and Nova Dugan-Mezensky, spokesman for the Insurance Fairness Project.

“We’ve heard from folks on the ground when talking about the issue of home insurance. People want to feel that if they make an effort to ensure their property is protected or that their community is making significant investments to prepare itself to become more resilient for future extreme weather events, then they will see a meaningful reduction in rates or at least a pause in increases in rates,” Adcox added.

Jones, who now serves as director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, acknowledged that some insurers may push back against the feasibility of the concept in other states.

His response to this was simple: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

“What you will sometimes hear from insurance companies is that there’s not a perfect database that gathers all the data about mitigation. Well, insurance companies are good about collecting information from you, and there’s plenty of public data available or data they can collect from homeowners, the community or from the state,” Jones said.

“So don’t credit the arguments that you may hear from some insurers in some states that this can’t be done. It can be done, and Colorado is showing the way.”

“I’m really proud of this bill and really looking forward to seeing other states put this forward. If there are any improvements that people can find to the bill, I’m sure that the legislature in the future will be happy to make some changes to our policy to align with the best practices,” Titone said.

Colorado’s insurance crisis

A report released by the Insurance Fairness Project last month confirmed Colorado’s home insurance costs are rising faster than anywhere else in the U.S.

Although premiums in Colorado used to be among the most affordable, the report found that they are now among the most expensive. The average family in Colorado spends around 5% of their annual income on home insurance premiums.

The high risk of wildfires and other natural disasters has also pushed some insurers to minimize coverage in certain areas. At the same time, there is “a disconnection between premiums and risk,” the report said, as underwriting tends to draw on wildfire risk models that may not reflect mitigation efforts.

“Families are facing difficult choices. Either they come up with thousands of dollars more, buy less insurance than they need or go completely without. This ultimately leaves taxpayers and communities picking up the bills when disasters strike,” Dugan-Mezensky said.

“Colorado’s insurance crisis is not an isolated problem; it’s part of a broader national emergency. But Colorado is taking action, which shows that states are not completely powerless.”

Leading with action

With House Bill 1182, Colorado has become the first state to enact legislation requiring insurers to account for individual and community mitigation in underwriting models.

This represents the state again taking the lead in insurance legislation, as it was also the first state to introduce AI legislation for the insurance industry.

Washington state took the crown for being the first to introduce a state-funded long-term care insurance program. Colorado was a runner-up in that race, having conducted studies looking into the issue.

Jones acknowledged that other states, including Washington and Oregon, previously attempted home insurance legislation and failed. However, he chalked it up to political dynamics rather than feasibility, and expressed optimism that it can still be done elsewhere in the U.S.

“It’s necessary for the state legislature to act to make this happen,” Jones said. “This is not something that a state insurance commissioner can do by themself. This is the sort of reform that state legislatures need to accomplish and should accomplish.”

Data for Progress is a left-wing think tank and political advisory group founded in 2018 and based out of Washington, DC, that conducts public opinion research.

The Insurance Fairness Project is an advocacy group founded in 2025 that provides information on the American home insurance crisis.

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