TRUCKEE, Calif. – In a groundbreaking move that could reshape wildfire insurance nationwide, the Tahoe Donner Association has secured a first-of-its-kind policy that links premium pricing directly to decades of active forest management.

The innovative agreement—developed in collaboration with former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, The Nature Conservancy, UC Berkeley and Willis, a business of WTW—marks the first time an insurance company has factored large-scale fuel reduction work into wildfire risk assessments and policy pricing. Structured by Willis, the $2.5 million wildfire resilience insurance coverage has been developed for Tahoe Donner.

The policy covers over 1,300 acres of high-risk open space within Tahoe Donner, one of the largest landowners in the region behind the U.S. Forest Service and a major land trust. These zones—selected using fire modeling, proximity to ignition sources like Interstate 80, and the potential for human-caused fires—have seen direct threats from wildfire.

“Because of the work we’ve done in forest management, it’s more likely that we’re gonna have a lesser impact, lesser cost, lesser payout, because we reduce that risk,” Jason Hajduk-Dorworth, Director of Administrative Services for the Association, said. 

Jones, a longtime Tahoe Donner homeowner, helped launch the project by connecting the Association with The Nature Conservancy and UC Berkeley School of Law.

Tahoe Donner’s long standing record of fire mitigation, along with its trove of historical data on forest stewardship, made it a uniquely strong candidate for this pilot.

“They had been looking to do this kind of work for a long time…but they didn’t have the correct partner,” Hajduk-Dorworth said. “Tahoe Donner was the correct partner at the right time.”

Annie Rosenfeld, General Manager of Tahoe Donner, underscored that the Association’s fire readiness work has evolved over decades. “We’ve been doing fuel reduction work for forest health and resiliency, watershed concerns, and now really transitioning into that defensible home wildland fire impact mitigation work,” she said. 

“We also, more importantly, have that historical body of information that we can share,” Hadjuk-Dorworth added. 

The Nature Conservancy is covering the cost of the insurance premium through a grant, making Tahoe Donner’s participation financially viable while also establishing metrics that could help scale the program to homeowners.

“This isn’t a cure-all—it’s just one more new tool in the tool bag,” Rosenfeld said. “We believe that we’ve positioned our organization to have the best outcome it can if the fire comes through.”

While the pilot policy applies only to Association-managed land, officials hope its success could eventually influence homeowner policies and broader insurance practices. “We have quantifiable actions that are being acknowledged in a quantifiable premium reduction,” Hajduk-Dorworth said. 

As wildfire risk intensifies and insurers retreat from high-risk zones, the Tahoe Donner policy is being viewed as a potential model. “Hopefully other insurance companies can look at homeowners insurance in the same way,” Rosenfeld said. “We’re a town within the town essentially. We have a vested interest not just in our community, but the whole entire community of Truckee-Tahoe.”

Public understanding remains a hurdle. A member education campaign is set to roll out this summer to explain how forest-wide insurance efforts could eventually benefit individual property owners.

In a state where many homeowners have lost access to fire insurance altogether, Tahoe Donner’s policy may signal a way forward. 

“Fire is something that we have to live with for the future,” Rosenfeld said. “So how are we adapting to that, and how are we adjusting what we’re doing on the land to live with fire?”