FAQs

Questions people ask

What is the Home Hardening Score?: It is a free self-assessment. You answer about twenty questions about your house, and you get a score from 0 to 100 along with a documented list of which wildfire mitigation measures your home already meets. The measures are not ours. They are the specific items California regulation requires insurers to account for when they price wildfire risk.
Is this an inspection?: No. You are describing your own house and we are organising your answers against the standards that apply. Nobody visits the property. Your insurer will want its own verification, and we tell you what that involves.
How long does it take?: Around five minutes. A few questions ask you to step outside and look at something, so it helps to be at home.
Will this lower my insurance bill?: We will not tell you what you will save, and we will not guess, because the honest answer depends on your carrier and your property. What we can tell you is more useful. California regulation requires insurers who price on wildfire risk to reflect these measures in your rate, and to tell you in writing the dollar premium reduction each specific measure would produce on your policy. Most carriers apply mitigation credit only to the wildfire portion of your premium rather than the whole bill. Your assessment gives you the documented list and the exact request to send your insurer, so you get that number from the only party who can legitimately produce it.
What is the difference between this and the Defensible Space Score?: Home hardening is about the building. Defensible space is about the ground and the vegetation around it. They are the two halves of wildfire mitigation and insurers credit both. We ask about the five feet closest to your house because you cannot separate the two cleanly, and because the evidence is emphatic that hardening a building does very little if there is continuous fuel against the walls. For a deeper look at vegetation, zones, and clearance, use the Defensible Space Score.
What is Zone 0, and is it required by law?: Zone 0 is the five feet closest to your house. A statewide rule specifically governing it has been in draft since 2025 and had not been adopted as of August 2026, although some cities and counties already require it. Insurers credit work in this zone today regardless of the rule's status, so it is worth doing now either way.
Is this the same as an IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home designation?: No, and it is not a substitute for one. Wildfire Prepared Home is a paid third-party designation that includes an in-person evaluation, and it carries considerably more weight with carriers than any self-assessment can. Think of this as the free step you take first, to see where you stand and what a designation would require.
What do you do with my address and my answers?: We store them so you can come back to your assessment, and we use them to produce your score and your documentation. We do not sell your information. Our privacy policy sets out what we collect, who processes it, and how to ask us to delete it.
Who is behind this?: The Home Hardening Score is built by AACI Group, which also operates Five Bays Insurance Agency, a licensed California insurance agency. We say so plainly because you should know it when you read anything here about insurance.