CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — The Town of Castle Rock will begin wildfire mitigation work next week as an unusually warm and dry February has heightened concerns about critical fire risk across Colorado.
The town, with the help of Colorado State Forest Service, will target roughly 23 acres of timbered open space on the southeast side of Metzler Family Open Space.
About 150 trees have been marked for removal, along with thick brush and low branches that could help a fire spread.
Castle Rock Fire Chief Norris Croom walked the property with Denver7 Thursday and explained the dry conditions make the work urgent.
“You look at this, and this is all dead and dry, and so without that moisture, fire is going to carry rapidly,” Croom said.
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Norris Croom, Fire Chief at Castle Rock Fire & Rescue Dept.
Crews will also remove low-hanging branches — what fire officials call ladder fuels — trimming trees to prevent a fire from climbing into the tree canopy.
The work will also address trees infected by mountain pine beetles as part of a broader effort to improve forest health.
“So really, we’re doing mitigation, forest health and beetle kill mitigation all the same time,” Croom said.
With the open space sitting in close proximity to homes, the effort represents one step the town can take — but residents say protecting communities from wildfire is a shared responsibility.
Denver7 met Sammy Beveridge, who was enjoying the trails at Metzler Family Open Space Thursday afternoon.
She welcomed the mild weather but said the dry conditions have her on edge.
“This year might be a little scarier than some of the past ones, just because of how dry it’s been,” Beveridge said.
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Sammy Beveridge, Franktown resident
She added that even small actions by residents can make a meaningful difference.
“Even if it’s just a couple branches here and there, it’s going to make a huge difference,” Beveridge said.
The mitigation work at Metzler Family Open Space is expected to take about a month.
The town said crews will be visible in the area during daylight hours, beginning at 8 a.m. Monday through Saturday.
The open space will remain accessible; however, due to tree felling and vegetation removal activities and equipment, portions of the trails will be closed throughout the project. Closures include the eastern part of the Red Loop as well as the Crowfoot Connector.
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CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Douglas County is gearing up for what could be a decent winter storm starting Thursday morning.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service in Boulder say the system could bring between 5 to 10 inches of snow to the area.
At the county’s public works building along Industrial Way in Castle Rock, Denver7 got a behind-the-scenes look at final preparations before plows hit the road. Assistant Director Dan Roberts oversees the operations.
“What we anticipate is this is going to feel like the first snow storm of the year to a lot of people,” Roberts said.
Anaya Salcedo, Denver7 Photojournalist
Pictured: Dan Roberts, assistant director of operations at Douglas County Public Works
All of the county’s 76 plows are ready to deploy for the incoming weather system, according to Roberts. Maintenance crews performed some checks Wednesday afternoon to make sure everything was running smoothly.
“They’re going to be out there all night, tomorrow night, plowing the roads while it’s snowing, to make sure that when you come into work on Friday morning that the roads are in as good a condition as we can make them,” Roberts said.
While the county waits for flakes to fall, Denver7 spoke with several residents looking forward to return of winter weather.
“I’m kind of excited,” Karina Olguin said.
“I’m super stoked about it. We need the weather for sure,” said Zach Ketelsen, another Douglas County resident.
Anaya Salcedo, Denver7 Photojournalist
Back at public works, Roberts explained crews have been busy patching potholes and grading roads with the lack of recent snowfall.
He said they’re looking forward to not only this storm, but what future ones will bring.
“They love to plow snow, but the Super Bowl is when you get about three feet of snow,” laughed Roberts. “That’s when they really love their job.”
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A conservative podcaster who’s trumpeted false election conspiracies and called for the execution of political rivals, including Gov. Jared Polis, has formally joined the Republican race to become Colorado’s next governor.
Joe Oltmann, who filed his candidacy paperwork Monday night, now seeks to participate in an electoral system that he has repeatedly tried to undermine.
He is the 22nd Republican actively seeking to earn the party’s nomination in June. It’s the largest gubernatorial primary field for a major party in Colorado this century, surpassing the GOP’s previous records set first in 2018, and then again in 2022 — and it comes as the party hopes to break Democrats’ electoral dominance in the state.
That field will almost certainly narrow in the coming months; four Republicans who’d filed have already dropped out. No more than four are likely to make it onto the ballot — either through the state assembly or by gathering signatures — for the summer primary, said Dick Wadhams, the Colorado GOP’s former chairman.
The size of the primary field doesn’t really matter, he said, because few candidates will actually end up in front of voters. Eighteen candidates filed ahead of the 2022 race, for instance, but just two were on the primary ballot.
On the Democratic side, a smaller field of seven active candidates is headlined by Attorney General Phil Weiser and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. Polis is term-limited from running again.
For 2026, Wadhams counted only a half-dozen or so Republican candidates whom he considered “credible,” a qualifier that Wadhams said he used “very, very loosely”: Oltmann, state Sens. Barbara Kirkmeyer and Mark Baisley, state Rep. Scott Bottoms, ministry leader Victor Marx, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell and former Congressman Greg Lopez.
Wadhams said that other than Kirkmeyer, all of those candidates had either supported election conspiracies or a pardon for Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk now serving a nine-year sentence for convictions related to providing unauthorized access to voting equipment.
Oltmann, of Castle Rock, has repeatedly — and falsely — claimed that the 2020 presidential election was not won by Democrat Joe Biden, while calling for the hanging of political opponents. He previously said he wanted to dismember some opponents to send a message, according to the Washington Post, before adding that he was joking.
In his Dec. 26 announcement video, Oltmann baselessly claimed that Democrats, who have won control of the state amid demographic shifts and anti-Trump sentiment, were in power in Colorado only because of election fraud.
He said Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, along with 9News anchor Kyle Clark, were part of a “synagogue of Satan.” Polis and Griswold are both Jewish.
In his announcement, Oltmann painted an apocalyptic picture of the state and said he hoped that three of its elected leaders — Polis, Griswold and Weiser — would all be imprisoned. He pledged to eliminate property taxes, to focus on the “have-nots” and to pardon Peters, whom President Donald Trump has also sought to release by issuing a federal pardon that legal experts say can’t clear Peters of state convictions.
Oltmann’s decision to join the field is an example of “extreme candidates” from either major party “who file to run but will go nowhere,” predicted Kristi Burton Brown, another former state GOP chair. She now sits on the Colorado State Board of Education.
She said the size of the Republican primary field was a consequence of Republicans’ difficulties winning statewide races in Colorado. Democrats have won all four constitutional elected offices for two straight election cycles.
Burton Brown said it “might be a good idea moving forward” to require candidates to do more than just submit paperwork to run for office. That might include a monetary requirement: She said she didn’t support charging candidates significant sums but thought that “requiring some skin in the game” could prevent “unreasonable primaries.”
The 2026 election comes as state and national Democrats search for a path forward after Trump’s reelection last year.
Approval polling for leading Colorado Democrats has sagged this year, and voters here hold unfavorable views of both the Democratic and Republican parties that are roughly equal, according to a November poll.
Wadhams said that the odds were “very difficult” for any Republican gubernatorial candidate next year. While approval for Polis and other Democrats has declined, support for the Republican standard-bearer — Trump — is far lower in the state. In last year’s election, Colorado was a largely blue island in a broader national red wave.
To have a real shot of winning in 2026, Wadhams argued, the GOP needed to nominate someone for governor who could sidestep anti-Trump sentiment and press on the issues driving voter discontent. Running more divisive candidates in a blue state, he warned, would risk harming Republicans’ chances in down-ballot races the statehouse or in races for Congress.
“There seems to be an opening for Republicans we haven’t seen for a while,” he said. “But that opening will only exist if we have candidates who won’t get pulled into this conspiracy stuff and this Tina Peters stuff. Because those are nonstarters. They’re sure losers.”
DENVER — The Denver Police Department (DPD) has quietly launched drones to serve as first-responders in a pilot program, sparking renewed concerns about surveillance and transparency.
The pilot program includes two Skydio X10 drones and two docking stations installed on the roof of the Denver Police Administration building on Cherokee Street in downtown Denver.
Since mid-October, when the pilot program was first launched, the drones have responded to 215 calls for service.
“Leveraging emerging technologies like Drone as First Responder platforms will help us to achieve quicker response times…” said Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas in a news release announcing the trial run.
The drones operate within a two nautical mile radius of that location, according to DPD.
Denver Police Department
Denver joins a growing number of metro area communities using drone as first-responder programs, including Commerce City and Castle Rock.
However, the program has sparked concerns about transparency around how the program started and who is being contracted to carry it out.
DPD said it is currently piloting with Skydio Drone, and has signed a contract with Flock Aerodome, the same surveillance company at the center of recent controversy over a contract extension it made with the city behind closed doors, according to some Denver City Council members.
A move that is apparently starting to become a pattern for the city.
When Denver7 reached out to Denver Councilmember At-Large Serena Gonzalez-Gutierrez, she said this was the first she had heard about DPD’s drone pilot program.
And as a member of the city’s surveillance task force, she believes the community should have been involved in the decision to launch the pilot program back on Oct. 18.
“We need an opportunity to at least catch up and to implement some guardrails to make sure that we’re not causing more harm,” she said.
Flock Safety, one of the two companies contracted for the trial, is already at the center of disputes with the city and residents over its automated license plate reader cameras.
“After everything that we have gone through with the automated license plate readers… it’s very, very concerning that we’re continuing to do business with this company,” said Gonzalez-Gutierrez.
Denver Police Department
Denver7 reached out to the department Friday, but DPD was not available for an interview.
In the department’s news release, the agency highlighted early successes.
DFR drones have been deployed to 215 calls for service (through December 8th) including, but not limited to: Robberies, burglaries, assaults, fights, weapons-related offenses, narcotics-related reports, and more
Over 80% of the time, drones arrive first on scene to incidents to which they respond
In more than 30% of calls to which they respond, the DFR pilots determine that no patrol response is needed, allowing officers to be redirected to higher-priority incidents
In 95% of the missions they fly, the pilots assess that they’ve provided critical information to officers on the ground
Using the DFR drones, the pilots have helped locate suspects, clear calls without officer deployment, and reduce wait times for service
But some city leaders remain unconvinced that the benefits will outweigh the risks.
“It’s yet to be answered whether or not these can be utilized by avoiding the concerns that people have been stating,” Gonzalez-Gutierrez said.
The zero-dollar Skydio pilot program is contracted through March of 2026.
Meanwhile, a timeframe for obtaining and installing the Flock Aerodome equipment has not yet been determined, according to DPD.
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DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. — Douglas County leaders and the community gathered Thursday night in Lone Tree to celebrate the area’s accomplishments in 2025.
At the annual “State of the County” address held at the Denver Marriott South at Park Meadows, officials highlighted several major wins, including a significant drop in crime and the completion of the county’s largest transportation project along the US 85 corridor.
“Douglas County is safer than ever with the highest number of school resource officers in the state,” said Commissioner Kevin Van Winkle during his opening remarks.
The county also touted its investments in parks and open space, with leaders emphasizing their commitment to creating an environment “where families flourish and businesses thrive.”
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Douglas County Commissioners
“Our community is one of a kind,” said Commission Chair Abe Laydon as he kicked off the ceremony.
As 2025 comes to a close, Denver7 was in the community listening to the voices that call the area home.
“The location, quite honestly, is just unmatched,” said resident Chuck Hellings alongside his wife Deb.
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Chuck & Deb Hellings, Douglas County residents
We heard several reasons why some of the county’s 400,000 residents choose to live here.
“Midwest was getting very political, and there were times that my wife didn’t feel safe,” said resident Philip Karas, who moved to the area from Milwaukee.
Denver7 also asked what Douglas County residents would like to see prioritized in 2026.
“Obviously, schools… we came out here to give our kids a better life,” Karas said.
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Philip Karas & his daughter, Silvia (9), Douglas County residents
As the area continues to see more people move in, responsible growth was a common thread among the people we talked to.
“It’s amazing to me, the amount of growth that I’ve witnessed here,” said Hellings. “I just don’t know how it continues.”
In an interview with Denver7, Commissioner Kevin Van Winkle acknowledged these growth management challenges, explaining the county is developing long-term planning strategies.
“We’re looking at what growth will be like between now and 2050 over the next 25 years, and we’re trying to do it in a way where the current residents aren’t disturbed by the growth, but we’re still welcoming of new citizens, new businesses,” Van Winkle said.
Watch the Douglas County “State of the County” address in the video player below:
With the new year right around the corner, major projects are on the horizon, including the groundbreaking of Zebulon Sports Complex.
And residents remain hopeful that Douglas County can preserve what drew them to the area in the first place.
“Maintain the standard of living, the quality of life that we’ve come here to enjoy, and make sure it can be enjoyed by future generations,” said Hellings.
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CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — The Castle Rock Police Department is expanding its drone program and will send drones to check out crime scenes before officers arrive.
“It’s an innovation piece that’s going to continue to help us keep our community safe,” said Castle Rock Police Chief Jack Cauley.
The police department will use the drones to respond to emergency incidents and calls for service throughout the Town of Castle Rock. The drones are also equipped with thermal and infrared sensors and can assist in missing persons and school safety calls.
“If our officers are tied up on calls and they can’t get somewhere, we can have the drone there in no time, and then provide that feed back to our real-time crime center,” said Cauley.
Denver7 has reported on several law enforcement agencies and their drone programs. Read our previous coverage below:
The drones, which unofficially launched over the summer, have already aided in stopping retail thefts throughout the region.
The Flock Drone as First Responder program is an expansion of CRPD’s current drone program, which launched in 2021. The drones work in conjunction with Flock license plate readers, which were first implemented in the Town of Castle Rock in 2021.
Since then, CRPD told Denver7 it’s seen a 14 percent decrease in overall crime and a 41 percent reduction in auto thefts.
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Colorado advocates raise concerns over police use of first responder drones
We’ve heard from many viewers about privacy and safety concerns with this technology. Keith Kauffman, Flock’s senior director of the Drones as First Responders program, addressed those concerns on Thursday.
“What we’re really focused on — responsible for — is building a platform that has great transparency in it,” Kauffman said.
The Castle Rock Police Department said it’ll soon launch a transparency portal, where residents can access flight logs and a list of calls for service. Chief Cauley acknowledged it’s a work in progress while emphasizing the program’s value.
“Just to be clear, we don’t just fly the drone for the heck of it. I mean, it’s done for purpose,” Chief Cauley said. “We have a call for service, a reason to be there, a reason to help the community.”
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CASTLE ROCK — Twenty years before they rekindled a friendship in Europe, the Euro step was a controversial subject between rivals Wyndham Clark and Derrick White.
They played for opposing youth basketball teams in the Denver area, first matching up around the third grade. Both were point guards. White guarded Clark. Clark guarded White. White was a little more advanced than his peers — little did they know, he was a future NBA champion and Olympic gold medalist — and at some point during the mid-2000s, he implemented an unfamiliar move to his game. It was just beginning to get popular in the pros.
“He was doing the Euro step at a young age,” Clark remembers, “and our whole team kept thinking it was traveling. So every time he would do the Euro step, all our dads and everyone was like, ‘That’s a travel!’ And they would never call it.
“Fast forward to next year, and we’re all doing the same thing.”
White was teaching Clark new tricks on the basketball court. Now it’s finally Clark’s turn to return the favor on the golf course. He’s the fifth-ranked golfer in the world, the winner of the 2023 U.S. Open and the fan favorite this weekend at the BMW Championship. Valor Christian High School, Class of 2012. White is a two-time All-Defensive Team honoree in the NBA, a glue guy for the Boston Celtics and Team USA, and a Clark groupie this weekend. Legend High School, Class of ’12.
White has never played golf or gotten invested in the sport, “but I’m gonna start,” he declared while walking the first fairway at Castle Pines Golf Club on Thursday. He walked all 18 holes in support of his former basketball foe, who was paired with Rory McIlroy.
“It’s fun because he’s kind of new to golf, and so (he) got his real first experience of pro golf at the Olympics, watching and walking with us,” Clark said. “And he really has the bug. We’ve been talking about it. He’s like, ‘I love it so much.’ It was really cool to have him out there.”
Clark finished his first round at even par, but that doesn’t even begin to tell the story. He endured a hectic back nine that included multiple shots into the water and multiple double-bogeys. And that was before a cartoonishly timed lightning delay forced him and McIlroy to wait more than three hours to complete their final putts on the 18th hole. Spectators (even White) had vacated the premises by the time they resumed.
“I was hoping it was going to be one of those quick Colorado 30-minute storms, but there was another one behind it,” Clark lamented. “Definitely a bummer being here for three hours.”
Before that awkward conclusion without a crowd, Clark had been treated to resounding applause throughout the afternoon. Coloradans who noticed White gave him some love, too. He was hard to miss during the first hole, cradling the Larry O’Brien Trophy as he strolled downhill. Whether it was Boston’s Larry or Denver’s from the previous year, though, is unclear. The trophy was also on display Wednesday during the pro-am event, which featured Nuggets president Josh Kroenke.
“I didn’t even know it was gonna be here,” a confused White said, starting to regret his decision to lug Larry along. “I’m really just here to support Wyndham and cheer him on. … I didn’t know it was gonna be here. I was walking in, and I see it on the ground, and I’m like, ‘Let me hold that.’”
His opportunity to reacquaint with Clark this summer was truly last-second. Kawhi Leonard’s withdrawal from Team USA opened a roster spot two weeks before the Paris Olympics. White was the first choice to fill in. He flew solo to Abu Dhabi, UAE, to join the team for its remaining exhibition games, and soon enough he was floating down the Seine with Clark at the opening ceremony.
“(We had) big battles. Big rivalry on the court,” White said. “And then obviously he went and did big things, so it was great reconnecting. And we ended up on the boat in the Olympics.”
“Hanging out in Paris was pretty cool,” Clark said, grinning.
They reminisced. Decades-old matchups on hardwood aged into shared laughs. Their youth teams always seemed to face off in the championship game. “Wyndham was good,” White says, but he insists that his squad, the Dolphins, won more. Clark even played some high school ball at Valor, where he was classmates with NFL star Christian McCaffrey.
“It’s really neat to see kind of Colorado sports coming on the map with Derrick, myself and Christian and some of the other Olympians,” Clark said earlier this week. “It’s a good thing for Colorado. I feel like the sports are in a good spot here.”
When the horn blared indicating a weather stoppage, McIlroy was frozen mid-backswing on the 18th green. (“I knew it was close, and I kind of wanted Rory to speed up,” the local weather expert Clark said later, laughing.) Patrons vacated the course for a nearby covered area outside the clubhouse, where White held court. Colorado golf fans approached him for photographs and autographs. He posed and signed graciously for about 20 minutes. Then a golf cart arrived and he shipped off, leaving his old rival to wait out the storm.
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Castle Rock town council members will discuss a tax increase on Tuesday night that the town says would address public safety needs.
Town officials say the sales tax increase would go alongside conservative budgeting measures and would allow them to hire 40 additional public safety personnel over the next five years.
This sales tax increase would go up by 0.2 percent – that’d be 20 cents on a 100-dollar purchase, for example.
It would generate about $3.75 million a year, which would allow for the hiring of 18 fire and 22 police personnel.
During public comments submitted over the past couple of months, Castle Rock residents voiced concerns about the already high cost of living with inflation.
If the ballot question is approved on August 20, it’ll be on the November ballot.
Election day is November 5, 2024.
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A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office K-9 bit a child and the child’s father after escaping from his handler’s backyard in Castle Rock on Sunday.
Around 4 p.m. Sunday, the dog escaped its outdoor enclosure at his handler’s home in Castle Rock and jumped over a 5-foot fence separating the backyard from a neighboring yard.
The dog bit a child and the child’s father who tried to intervene, the sheriff’s office said in a news release Wednesday. The handler “gained control” of the dog after realizing he had escaped.
Both the child and his father were treated at a hospital and are recovering at home, according to the sheriff’s office.
The agency is cooperating with an investigation by the Castle Rock Police Department as well as conducting an internal investigation.
The handler, who was not named in the news release, is on paid administrative leave. The dog is in a 10-day quarantine and barred from contact with humans other than the handler and all animals.
Sheriff’s officials are reviewing the dog’s future as a member of the K-9 unit, agency officials said Wednesday.
“We are devastated by this incident and are fully committed to supporting the family during their recovery,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Coloradans looking to buy homes or simply hold onto their property face a barrage of challenges: a white-hot real estate market, high interest rates and soaring property taxes. You can add surging home insurance rates to the pile of problems eroding the landscape of affordable housing options.
Colorado homeowners are reporting premium increases ranging from roughly 30% to more than 130% in just the past few years. People are getting the bad news that their policies won’t be renewed. Some insurance companies are deciding not to write new policies to cut their risks.
And condo owners are getting hit with special assessments and higher dues because premiums are skyrocketing for homeowners associations. The groups must often resort to non-standard carriers, which typically charge sky-high rates for lesser coverage.
“We truly have the hardest market that we’ve seen in a generation for property insurance,” said Carole Walker, executive director of the trade organization Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.
Colorado’s not alone. Inflation, higher home costs and the rising number and severity of natural disasters and wildfires are pushing up insurance costs. The average premium rate increase nationwide in 2023 was 11.3%, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
But Colorado’s recent increases stand out. The state was one of three with the biggest cumulative change in rates 2018-2023. Colorado logged a 57.9% jump, just behind Texas at 59.9%. Arizona saw a 52.9% increase.
A convergence of factors is driving the run-up in costs, Walker said. Higher inflation is one of those. “You have everything that insurance pays for going up in cost.”
Building materials are more expensive. Labor costs are up and labor shortages create delays and add to the expense. Walker said insurance-related lawsuits also help push up premiums.
An even larger force is the fallout from increasingly costly wildfires, hail storms and other disasters. Insurance companies doing business in Colorado reported the fourth-highest losses in the country for five years, according to data compiled for a 2023 report by the Colorado Division of Insurance.
“I hate to say it, but we all likely need to adjust to higher premiums over the long term,” Walker said.
The effects of the mounting risks are being felt by a lesser known, but crucial link in the chain that connects to homeowners: the reinsurance market. Reinsurers are typically large, global companies that provide insurance to insurance companies to help spread the risk.
“The international impact of climate change, of increasing climate disasters, the severity of those disasters is causing reinsurers to consider their risk, reduce their exposure or increase their premiums,” said Vince Plymell, spokesman for the insurance division.
As a result, the effects of hurricanes and earthquakes in other parts of the country or world can eventually show up in a Colorado homeowner’s insurance bill, said Jason Lapham, the state’s deputy commissioner for property and casualty insurance.
Closer to home are the growing risks of wildfire and hail storms. Colorado is second in the nation for hail-damage claims and second only to California for the number of homes at risk from wildfires. Colorado hasn’t seen the kind of wide scale refusal of companies to write new policies that California has, but Lapham said there is a trend of some companies not re-upping policies in areas prone to wildfires or other disasters or taking “a pause” on new clients.
“It doesn’t mean they’re leaving the state entirely, but for those people who are affected, the effect is the same,” Lapham said.
State officials don’t have a lot of insight into the modeling used by companies to decide which areas are too risky to insure, Lapham said. “We’re focused on getting a better understanding and creating transparency, not just for us but also for policy holders.”
Levi Ware, project manager from Red Hawk Roofing company from Denver, takes pictures of a roof damaged by large hail and a tornado along Chesapeake Street in Highlands Ranch on June 23, 2023. A rare tornado hit the Highlands Ranch area Thursday afternoon causing damage to roofs and uprooting large trees. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
What’s worse than rising premiums?
There were plenty of insurance options for Bryan Watts and his wife when they bought a house in Guffey in Park County, west of Cripple Creek. The premium was about $2,000 in 2019 and rose gradually to $2,522 for the 2023-2024 policy year.
“Things changed dramatically in August 2023 when we received a notice of non-renewal at the policy maturity of June 2024,” Watts said. “I called them and was told it was simply due to wildfire risk.”
Watts tried to reason with the company, saying he had done a lot of work to reduce threats from wildfire. He offered to send pictures of his home or show an inspector around his property. But the insurer told him that it wasn’t going to cover homes in his zip code.
“I thought, ‘Well, no big deal. I’ll just move to another carrier,’” Watts said. “I had no idea how bad it had gotten just in the last year or two.”
A broker Watts worked with found only nonstandard insurers willing to cover his home. The insurers might take on customers that more traditional companies consider too risky, but the coverage comes at a high price. In Watts’ case, the quote was for nearly $35,000.
After making calls on his own, Watts found one of the big-name companies willing to write a policy for $4,800. A hang-up for companies that turned him down was that the nearest fire station is about 16 miles from his home. “They’re looking for substations that are 10 miles or closer,” Watts said.
Like a lot of people, Watts has a mortgage on his house, which means he needs to carry insurance. “There are going to be very few people who are able to live out here without a mortgage,” he said.
Escalating home insurance premiums and companies scaling back coverage are creating angst in the real estate industry. Brian Tanner, vice president of public policy for the Colorado Association of Realtors, said agents are seeing properties lose coverage or unable to find insurance.
“All of this together is incredibly problematic for a market that we already know is strained. We need more available units,” Tanner said. “If we have existing residences that cannot secure insurance, that is absolutely a market disruptor.”
Real estate agents are scrambling to help clients to find coverage, Tanner said. He is concerned about rising rates on people on fixed incomes.
The state is creating an insurer of last resort, officially called the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, which will be paid for by assessments on the insurance industry. But it won’t be up and running until 2025 and applicants must have been turned down by at least three carriers.
Walker said the goal is to relieve pressure on the standard carriers by shifting some of the high risks, which the industry hopes will stabilize the market.
“Everybody I talk to is talking about the property insurance issue,” said Sarah Thorsteinson, CEO of the Altitude Realtors association, which includes Summit and Routt counties.
Real estate agents working in mountain communities started looking at the effect of wildfire risks on home insurance rates around 2012. That’s when the association started education and fire-mitigation programs for members and the public to head off possible mandates it worried could increase costs for buyers and sellers.
Thorsteinson represents property owners as a non-voting member of the Colorado Fire Commission. She said the association’s biggest concern with rising insurance premiums is housing affordability.
The ongoing struggle by homeowners associations, HOAs, to secure insurance has grown tougher, Thorsteinson said. She has heard of HOA dues doubling and tripling for condo owners in her area after insurance premiums shot up.
“We’ve seen increases of 100% or more for HOA policies,” said Lapham with the state insurance division.
Even before the recent rate increases, it was common for HOAs to have to seek providers in the non-standard market, also called the surplus lines market. “My guess is that it’s more common now than it has been simply because of the tightening of the market generally,” Lapham said.
Many of the more well-known insurers have gotten out of the condo business, Walker said, leaving the nonstandard carriers, whose policies are more expensive and have higher deductibles.
The more traditional insurers exited in part because of fears around construction-related lawsuits by HOAs. A 2017 law that requires a majority of homeowners to approve pursuing a lawsuit rather than just the HOA board has done little to coax insurers to write policies for condo buildings.
In some cases, HOA boards, trying to avoid raising dues, have put off infrastructure improvements and maintenance, making insurers nervous about the liabilities, Walker said.
The Hiland Hills Townhomes HOA was able to line up a new insurer in 2023, but had to budget for a 30% increase in premiums. Dues went up from $336 a month to $460 per unit.
“The coverage decreased overall. This year we’re budgeting for another 15% increase,” said Dmitry Gall, the HOA board president at the Denver complex.
The HOA was able to shuffle some items in the policy to hold down the increase. Gall said the association is cutting back in other areas to help pay the premium.
The HOA where Jon Christianson has a rental unit saw its insurance premium leap from the $167,000 budgeted last year to nearly $607,000. His fees doubled, “with a special assessment coming,” he said.
A letter from the HOA board that Christianson shared with The Denver Post said the previous insurance carrier got out of the Colorado market. Several companies declined to offer bids on a new policy because of the height and age of the three buildings in the complex and the fire suppression system.
Then the insurance for Christianson’s primary residence rose by 40%.
“I’ve never filed a claim. I’ve been with same insurance company for five years,” Christianson said. “This is becoming unsustainable.”
Carole Walker, the Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, stands for a photo outside the residential building where she lives in Denver on May 7, 2024. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
A marathon, not a sprint
The Marshall fire, which killed two people and destroyed 1,084 homes and businesses, receives a lot of the blame for Colorado’s escalating home insurance rates. The Dec. 30, 2021, wildfire raged through Louisville, Superior and parts of unincorporated Boulder County, leaving more than $2 billion in property damage in its wake.
Walker said although the Marshall fire was a devastating event, the reasons for rising rates are more complex. For instance, more people are moving into areas along the Front Range that frequently get battered by hail. Walker said Colorado’s most expensive hail storm hit in May 2017, wreaking $2.7 billion in damage in today’s dollars.
But for Alan McDaniel, who has an insurance agency in Castle Rock, the threat of wildfire is the primary obstacle when looking for ways to get a handle on rising insurance costs.
“I’m lucky enough that the carrier I mostly use, Farmers Insurance, isn’t not renewing policies, but others are,” McDaniel said.
He has worked with homeowners around Larkspur and other areas deemed too risky for wildfires by some insurers. “You have to fill out a fire-mitigation plan, take pictures and prove to my underwriter that it’s worth taking on because they’ve done all the steps they need to do,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel and other insurance agents have met with fire agencies to learn more about reducing wildfire risks and programs like Firewise, a national program overseen by the state forest service in Colorado. A goal is to lower homeowners’ premiums by making changes.
“In light of the Marshall fire, we did get inquiries from some homeowners and associations that were facing increased premiums as well as potentially losing coverage,” said Bart Chambers, the fire marshal for the Castle Rock Fire and Rescue Department.
Chambers has met with insurance agents to help them understand the steps needed to better protect homes and businesses. The fire department collaborates with town planners on decreasing wildfire threats and hopes to increase the number of certified Firewise neighborhoods in Castle Rock.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” Chambers said. “It needs to be maintained and followed through continuously.”
Chambers spent 30 years with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“We saw that on the front end there and we’re seeing it nationally now 20 years later, not only with wildfires but also with natural disasters,” Chambers said. “In Colorado, we can look at other people’s losses and make it better locally.”
