Galway Holdings to Host Wildfire Resiliency Summit in Napa Valley

Galway Holdings, a financial services and insurance distribution platform, today announced it will host the Wildfire Resiliency Summit from March 9-10, 2023. This two-day gathering will convene insurance representatives, winery owners, wildfire experts, and local Napa Valley residents with the objective of proactively addressing wildfire threats, restoring insurability to the region and mitigating future wildfire loss.

Being held in Napa County, the Wildfire Resiliency Summit aims to shed light on the Napa region’s burgeoning insurability crisis, as the frequency and intensity of wildfires have a negative impact on insurability and drive rate instability for commercial property owners and homeowners. Wildfires like the Glass Fire Incident in 2020, which destroyed over 1,500 structures and covered more than 67,000 acres, serve as catalysts for change in Napa. The fallout from this incident, which left wineries and countless other businesses facing non-renewals or sizable premium increases, serves as the backdrop for this forum to identify a long-term solution to wildfires’ complex causes and effects.

"The scale and impact of the wildfire crisis demands a collaborative and thoughtful response,” said John Hahn, Executive Chairman of Galway Holdings. “Property owners need a set of best practices and solutions to protect their assets, while insurers must adapt their underwriting approach in light of new technologies, models, research, mitigation tactics and community efforts in hardening defenses. The Wildfire Resiliency Summit is an opportunity to bring these stakeholders together, with the goal of supporting insurability and rate stability in Napa and other regions that are prone to wildfires."

Attendees of the Summit will include leadership from recognizable insurance companies as well as representatives from prominent wineries.

Day one of the Summit’s agenda includes several collaborative discussions and sessions for both winery owners and insurers to discuss the impacts of wildfire on their respective businesses. Hahn and his team at Galway Holdings will also highlight strategic resiliency tactics toward wildfire mitigation in the Truckee-Tahoe area as well as other pilot communities in the Napa Valley region.

“Wildfires have had a crippling effect on our local community and wine industry,” offered Linda Reiff, President and Chief Executive Officer of nonprofit trade association Napa Valley Vintners. “At the end of the day, we are an agricultural community, and our livelihood depends on ensuring our land and resources are safe. We are excited to take part in this Summit to help collaborate with key insurance leaders and demonstrate the great work and progress our community has collectively made to prevent and mitigate any future fires.”

Day two of the Summit will feature tours of local wineries and homes, showcasing business and property owners’ efforts to protect their assets and communities. Attendees can expect to learn various mitigation strategies that help manage and contain wildfire risk in regions that have been dubbed “uninsurable” by many.

The California wine industry contributes approximately $170 billion each year to the U.S. economy, but climate change-related wildfires are placing it—and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that it supports—in peril. Galway Holdings believes that a cooperative strategy is the way forward for both property owners and insurers to address wildfire exposure, extend risk transfer solutions to affected regions, and support wildfire-impacted communities.

Hahn added: “It’s mission-critical that we come together to tackle these far-reaching issues. In doing so, we hope to model an example that other communities can learn from and follow.”

Galway Holdings’ affiliate companies — EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants, Jencap, Paragon, and MAI Capital Management — provide a unique opportunity to leverage broad market access with strategic partners in the excess and surplus (E&S), retail, and reinsurance spaces to encourage participation and partnership in reducing wildfire risk. For those who have questions about the event or would be interested in learning more about Galway Holdings’ wildfire mitigation initiatives, please contact us at [email protected].

About Galway Holdings

Galway Holdings, LP, is a financial services platform focused on powering the growth of its network of companies utilizing data and technology to develop innovative next-level solutions on behalf of its clients. We empower our people with a commitment to our culture, the community and climate in an actionable manner leveraging the resources available across our platform. For more information about Galway Holdings, follow us on LinkedIn.

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