As fire tore through Oakridge Mobile Home Park in Sylmar on Friday, some of its residents likely knew they would bear the entire burden of rebuilding.
About 500 mobile homes were destroyed in the fire. While it's unclear how many were uninsured, about one-fourth of mobile homes statewide – 82,000 – don't carry insurance, according to a Bee analysis of 2007 census data. Another 200,000 houses don't carry insurance.
"It's hard to determine why someone wouldn't get insurance on their home," said Tully Lehman, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California, a nonprofit education organization. "Maybe they assume a disaster will never happen to them."
It's a problem that plagues Northern California wildfire hot spots, too. In Butte County, site of several large wildfires this year, about 8 percent of homes don't carry insurance.
That fact became painfully obvious.
One of the worst-hit Butte County communities was a mobile home neighborhood in Concow, across the Feather River from Paradise. Most of the residents interviewed afterward by The Bee said they didn't have insurance.
"I don't even know how to explain any of this," said Concow resident Randy Totten the day after the fire. Totten said he did not have insurance. "I'm at a total loss."
Most homeowners must get insurance as a condition of their mortgage – banks don't want their collateral turned to ashes without the chance of getting their money back. So most of those who don't pay homeowners' insurance premiums own their homes outright.
Much of the issue likely comes down to cost. Many of the areas with the most uninsured homes have high rates of poverty – and higher insurance premiums.
"It will be more expensive," said Jason Kimbrough, a spokesman for the California Department of Insurance, referring to areas at greater risk of fire.
Access comes into play, too. Some insurance companies don't want to issue policies in high-risk areas. That's mitigated somewhat, Kimbrough and Lehman said, by the high number of insurers in the state. And there's a state program that covers homeowners who have been rejected by more than three insurance companies.
There's no concerted statewide effort to convince people they need homeowners insurance. The state primarily makes sure available coverage is above board.
And once an owner without insurance loses a home, there's not much help available.
"Besides charity," Kimbrough said, "there's really nothing."
Call The Bee's Phillip Reese, (916) 321-1137.
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