I live in a low-risk area. Why is my home insurance going up by 65%?

To the editor: Something must be done for those in high-risk areas who need home insurance. But there is something I don’t understand. For example, when someone loses their home in a wildfire, they get a payout to rebuild in the same spot — do they get a claim if their home gets destroyed by fire again? (“State takes final step to fix California’s troubled home insurance market,” Dec. 30)

I understand paying high premiums to live in a high-risk area. My real problem is my situation.

I live in an area of Los Feliz that I would describe as low-risk. In the 30 years I have lived here, I can remember only a few instances where nearby homes might have had insurance claims. I’ve never had a claim, but my policy that was about $1,700 annually will soon be $2,800, a 65% increase.

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My circumstances have not changed. It just seems that I am asked to subsidize those living in high-risk areas, and the California insurance commissioner is allowing this kind of gouging.

This is just one more reason why it is getting too hard to afford California and people are leaving.

Robert Bachmann, Los Angeles

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To the editor: I’m happy to hear that California has stopped having insurers flee our state. This allows residents the ability to continue to get home insurance, although it could become very expensive for some.

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Having said that, I feel we are only attacking the symptoms without treating the underlying problem. I’m no doctor, but I wouldn’t treat a broken limb with only heavy painkillers. I would want to reset that bone as well.

In the case of home insurance, we need to reset the fact that our changing climate is intensifying weather-related disasters. We need to work on ways to reduce the wildfires, hurricanes and other devastation causing insurers to lose money.

This means reducing the greenhouse gases that enter our atmosphere. The most effective way is likely to create a carbon fee or tax, thus influencing society to use more clean renewable energy sources. Additionally, we need to find financially sound ways to remove carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere.

California can be a leader in both those solutions, and I fear without that, the current home insurance fix is somewhat temporary.

Jonathan Light, Laguna Niguel