North Coast wine businesses seek relief from California wildfire insurance woes

Wine castle enlists ‘Knights of Fire’ to help protect winery

The Glass Fire last year missed Dario Sattui’s popular Napa Valley wine tasting stop V. Sattui in Calistoga, but it gutted the “farmhouse” building at his nearby Castello di Amorosa winery, destroying thousands of dollars in wine but leaving the “Castle of Love” and other buildings untouched.

Insurance inspectors have been touring Sattui wine properties in recent days, but he’s made one wildfire preparation change on his own this year --- formation of a fire watch team at the castle. The eight-person team is made up of long-term employees who know the intricacies of the grounds. Called Cavalieri del Fuoco, Italian for “Knights of Fire,” the team will establish and maintain a defensible space around all structures, activate upon a red-flag warning then support firefighters if a blaze erupts.

“We were on site when it struck in the early morning hours, and we did what we could but felt like we could have done more to limit the damage,” said Georg Salzner, president of Castello di Amorosa. “We could have been more of a resource to the firefighters who were stretched thin that night.”

The castle winery invested nearly $100,000 in gear for the team and equipment which includes a portable water pump that obtains water from the lake, adaptors for the existing fire hydrants, thousands of feet of high-pressure fire hose and nozzles plus custom firefighting gear for the team. Even with such preventative measures, local vintners in high-fire-risk areas are having trouble getting and keeping their properties insured.

Ray Hannigan and Tobin Heminway were shocked when they learned they were losing insurance for their boutique winery in eastern Napa County’s Chiles Valley appellation, Green & Red Vineyard.

In January, a week after they finished making the fire safety fixes recommended by an inspector from their insurer, they said they received a letter that coverage of the 5,000-case-a-year winery building and wine inventory would be terminated at the end of this month because the property has “ineligible risk” for wildfire damage.

“Our broker told us that it is almost impossible to find a company willing to cover a winery in wildfire risk areas,” Hannigan said. It looks promising to find coverage of the wine inventory, given that it’s in a central Napa Valley warehouse and in barrels protected by a cave, he said.

At the 4,000-plus-cases-a-year Smith Madrone winery near the Bothe Napa Valley State Park on the western slopes of Napa Valley, Stu Smith said he was hit with a massive proposed increase for commercial coverage and given only hours to accept the increase or not.

The previous year’s premium of $12,700 would have gone up by 325%, to $54,000, putting the increased cost for insurance, on par with what the business pays for barrels as the winery’s biggest expense. Given the short timeframe to decide and big increase, he opted for a limited commercial policy from the California FAIR Plan, a high-risk pool for residential and commercial coverage provided by the insurance industry.

“It’s nothing short of a disaster,” Smith said.

This need to make a quick decision came amid the Hennessy Fire burning on one side of the valley, bottling what could be salvaged from the 2020 harvest then battling by hand the Glass Fire that burned all the forest on the 150-acre property. He spent several nights working a break around the 38-acre vineyard and the winery, and that’s all that survived.

Green & Red and Smith Madrone aren’t alone.

“That Glass Fire was the knockout punch for a lot of wildfire insurance,” said Nicholas Svetcoff, who brokers coverage for more than 200 West Coast wineries at Risk Strategies, a Boston-based specialty insurance brokerage and risk management firm. “We are a 850-winery agent, and now the market has shrunk to a couple of insurers with more scrutinized underwriting. “Now, I guess that one-third to one-half of wineries in California are uninsurable for getting property insurance.”

Starting early last year as carriers were exiting coverage of wineries in high-fire-danger areas, Svetcoff said he was able to find policies for 80% of the risks he handled, while 20% had to get coverage via a FAIR-sourced policy. Then came the lightning-sparked fires in August throughout California, including the Hennessey and Walbridge fires in Napa and Sonoma counties, respectively, and carriers paused underwriting new policies, Svetcoff said.

Then earlier this year, the California FAIR Plan Association for the first time said it couldn’t write policies for wineries in high-risk areas, and then it started offering coverage for tasting rooms and casegoods warehouses out of the high-risk zone where the winery is located, Svetcoff said.

California law requires 60-day notice for nonrenewals, and he hasn’t heard that his clients with FAIR policies have received any so far.

The California Department of Insurance said it hasn’t heard of such a problem.

“The Department of Insurance is not aware of any changes to FAIR Plan underwriting practices that would prevent it from continuing to cover commercial buildings on wineries or any other agricultural business, up to the full policy limit,” Michael Soller, deputy insurance commissioner, wrote the Journal.

Trade groups are stepping up to get help with this situation from Sacramento.

“Napa County’s commercial farms and ranches are losing property insurance availability because of increased wildfire risks,” Ryan Klobas, CEO of Napa County Farm Bureau. “However, unlike other homeowners and other commercial businesses, commercial farms and ranches are not eligible for coverage by the California FAIR Plan – the state’s insurer of last resort.”

That’s why the farm bureau earlier this month announced its support for state Senate Bill 11, introduced in early December by Sen. Susan Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, who in February was promoted to assistant majority whip in the California State Senate. SB 11 is set for a hearing before the Senate Insurance Committee on Thursday.

The legislation most importantly would amend Section 10094 of the Insurance Code to exclude “agricultural crop risk,” rather than “farm risk,” California FAIR Plan coverage. Klobas said that slight wording change would be significant, because it would allow coverage of “agricultural infrastructure,” equipment and components on a farm property, as crop insurance already exists for grapes and other commodities.

An uninsured farm cannot be collateralized for purposes of acquiring farm credit, and thus potentially could leave an operation with no access to capital to operate, Klobas said.

The California FAIR Plan association released a statement to the Business Journal after the state Senate Insurance Committee hearing, noting its support for SB 11:

“It has become increasingly difficult for California farmers living in wildfire areas to purchase insurance covering their farm buildings, so the Farm Bureau has approached the FAIR Plan to see how the two can work together to help farmers insure their buildings. During the course of the discussions, the FAIR Plan learned that certain winery properties are classified as farms.

“Unfortunately, since the FAIR Plan is prohibited by statute from writing farm risks, the FAIR Plan can no longer insure these winery properties until the statute is changed.”

Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Before the Business Journal, he wrote for Bay City News Service in San Francisco. He has a degree from Walla Walla University. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.

Update, April 13, 2021: Statement from the California FAIR Plan Association.

Correction, April 5, 2021: The name of Green & Red Vineyard was rendered incorrectly.

Wine castle enlists ‘Knights of Fire’ to help protect winery

The Glass Fire last year missed Dario Sattui’s popular Napa Valley wine tasting stop V. Sattui in Calistoga, but it gutted the “farmhouse” building at his nearby Castello di Amorosa winery, destroying thousands of dollars in wine but leaving the “Castle of Love” and other buildings untouched.

Insurance inspectors have been touring Sattui wine properties in recent days, but he’s made one wildfire preparation change on his own this year --- formation of a fire watch team at the castle. The eight-person team is made up of long-term employees who know the intricacies of the grounds. Called Cavalieri del Fuoco, Italian for “Knights of Fire,” the team will establish and maintain a defensible space around all structures, activate upon a red-flag warning then support firefighters if a blaze erupts.

“We were on site when it struck in the early morning hours, and we did what we could but felt like we could have done more to limit the damage,” said Georg Salzner, president of Castello di Amorosa. “We could have been more of a resource to the firefighters who were stretched thin that night.”

The castle winery invested nearly $100,000 in gear for the team and equipment which includes a portable water pump that obtains water from the lake, adaptors for the existing fire hydrants, thousands of feet of high-pressure fire hose and nozzles plus custom firefighting gear for the team. Even with such preventative measures, local vintners in high-fire-risk areas are having trouble getting and keeping their properties insured.

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