Arizona FAIR Plan: none. The 2025 DIFI mitigation council said no

Does Arizona have a FAIR Plan?

No. Arizona has no state FAIR Plan and no state-backed insurer of last resort. The state's Resiliency and Mitigation Council concluded a 10-meeting investigation in September 2025 and, in its December 2025 Final Report, declined to recommend creating one, endorsing a mitigation-first approach instead (Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions).

That leaves no state-run pool to apply to. The Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions directs homeowners who can't find coverage, including those who just got a non-renewal notice, to Arizona's surplus-lines (non-admitted, or E&S) market, brokered through licensed Arizona surplus-lines brokers and tracked by the Surplus Line Association of Arizona. Under Arizona surplus-lines law, a broker may place coverage with a non-admitted insurer only after a diligent effort has shown the risk can't be placed in the admitted market. That diligent-effort rule is the practical last-resort gate in Arizona, the equivalent of the 'declination' rule a FAIR Plan would apply.

What does it cover?

There is no coverage to describe because Arizona has no FAIR Plan. The voluntary admitted market still writes the bulk of homeowners business in the state, and where it declines, the gap is filled by surplus-lines (excess and surplus, or E&S) carriers and a small set of specialty admitted insurers. The Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions publishes the consumer route for non-renewed homeowners on its homeowners-insurance page; it does not list a residual-market plan.

That changes what to ask for. A standard homeowners policy (an HO-3) is open-peril for the dwelling: it covers everything except what the policy explicitly excludes. Most surplus-lines dwelling-fire policies sold as a replacement after a non-renewal are named-peril instead, covering only the perils listed (typically fire, lightning, explosion, smoke, sometimes wind and hail). Liability, theft, water damage, mold, and ordinance-or-law coverage are commonly excluded or sub-limited. Flood and earthquake sit outside both forms and always need their own policy.

The practical effect is that a stand-alone E&S fire policy is often paired with a difference-in-conditions (DIC) wrap that buys back the liability, theft, and water coverage an HO-3 would normally include. Independent brokers who place E&S business in Arizona are the people who do this routinely; an agent who writes for only one admitted carrier usually cannot.

How much will it cover?

There is no FAIR Plan dwelling cap to publish for Arizona because the state has no FAIR Plan. Coverage limits come from whichever carrier writes the policy, not from a state-administered pool.

That leaves two markets. Surplus-lines (E&S) policies, placed by brokers through the Surplus Line Association of Arizona, are individually underwritten: the dwelling limit is whatever the carrier agrees to bind for the specific home, based on replacement cost, construction, wildfire exposure, and prior claims. Specialty admitted carriers regulated by the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions set their own dwelling and contents limits in rate filings, which vary carrier by carrier.

The number to anchor on is the home's current replacement cost, not the coverage A figure from the non-renewed policy. Ask the new agent for a fresh replacement-cost estimate before binding (see replacement cost vs. actual cash value), and confirm the contents sublimit, the loss-of-use cap, and any wind or wildfire deductible in writing.

Who is eligible?

Arizona has no FAIR Plan, so there is no statutory decline-by-N test, no diligent-search rule, and no insurer-of-last-resort eligibility ladder to climb. Eligibility is whatever each individual carrier writes into its underwriting manual, and those rules are not published as state law.

In practice that means three paths, each with its own gatekeeping. Admitted carriers (companies licensed and regulated by the state) set their own eligibility: roof age, distance to brush, prior claims pulled from CLUE (the industry's prior-claims database), wildfire-risk score, and the condition of the home. A non-renewal from one admitted carrier does not bar coverage from another; some Arizona-active admitted insurers will still write a home another company just dropped, especially outside the high-WUI corridors.

The surplus-lines market (excess and surplus, or E&S, carriers, which are non-admitted and write the risks admitted carriers won't) is the usual second stop. E&S eligibility is broader on paper, anyone the underwriter agrees to take, but you reach it only through a surplus-lines broker, and the Surplus Line Association of Arizona stamps each policy.

Owner-occupied, second-home, rental, and investor properties are all writable in Arizona; the constraint is the property's risk profile, not its use. The Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions does not maintain a residual-market pool to fall back on if every carrier declines.

How do you apply?

There's no central plan to apply to in Arizona, so 'applying' is really a search across the open market through a licensed agent or broker. Two channels: an independent agent who can run admitted carriers (those licensed and regulated by the state), and, if those decline, a licensed surplus-lines broker who can place coverage with excess-and-surplus (E&S) carriers. The Surplus Line Association of Arizona licenses the surplus-lines brokers authorized to write E&S in the state; the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions publishes consumer guidance for the admitted-carrier route.

Before the first call, pull together the documents most submissions ask for: the declarations page from the policy that's ending, the non-renewal letter (including the reason code the carrier listed), the roof's age and a recent replacement-cost estimate for the dwelling, photos of the property and the surrounding lot, documentation of any defensible-space or wildfire-mitigation work, and a current CLUE report (the prior-claims database; one free copy per year from LexisNexis).

Turnaround varies by channel. An admitted-market quote can come back within a few business days. An E&S submission usually takes longer because each goes to the carrier's underwriting desk individually, and a wildfire-exposed home may require an on-site inspection before bind. Once a carrier agrees to write the policy, the agent issues an insurance binder: temporary proof of coverage that satisfies a lender while the full policy is issued.

How much does it cost?

The cost question doesn't have an Arizona FAIR Plan answer, because Arizona doesn't have a FAIR Plan. There is no plan rate filing to point at, no statewide last-resort dwelling premium to compare against the admitted market. If your home was just non-renewed, the price you'll see is whatever the surplus-lines (E&S) market quotes, plus, in some cases, what a specialty admitted carrier still writing wildfire-exposed Arizona property will offer.

Surplus-lines policies usually price above what an admitted carrier would have charged for the same home, and often arrive with higher wildfire deductibles, lower per-category coverage limits, or a named-peril form rather than the standard HO-3. Rates aren't filed with the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions (DIFI) the way admitted-carrier rates are; surplus-lines premium is overseen by the Surplus Line Association of Arizona, which collects the surplus-lines stamp and quarterly premium data but does not publish a homeowner-facing rate filing.

If your premium has spiked or you're being moved into a non-admitted policy at renewal, the order of operations is the same as for any sudden renewal spike. Specific Arizona surplus-lines premium ranges for 2026 aren't in the public record at the time of writing; DIFI's September 2025 Resiliency and Mitigation Council report, the agency's first formal look after 10 meetings, names the affordability and availability strain in the admitted market but stops short of publishing a premium benchmark.

What is changing right now?

Arizona's near-term policy story is the Resiliency and Mitigation Council, not a FAIR Plan. The Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions stood the Council up on December 2, 2024, ran ten public meetings through September 2025, and released its Final Report in December 2025. The report did not recommend a FAIR Plan; it pushed mitigation-first measures instead (Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions, verified May 2026).

The next dated milestone is data, not legislation. DIFI's Wildfire Insurance Task Force issued a mandatory data call to admitted carriers in late 2025; calendar-year 2025 data is now due July 15, 2026, after DIFI extended the original April 1, 2026 deadline. That filing will set the empirical baseline DIFI has said it lacked, including non-renewal counts, exposure concentrations in wildland-urban interface ZIPs, and rating-territory loss ratios.

One bill is worth tracking. Rep. Selina Bliss (R-Prescott) has proposed legislation that would require carriers to consider community Firewise efforts when setting rates and would restrict cancellations tied to off-property risks (a neighbor's defensible-space failures, for example). It had not been enacted as of May 2026.

Two structural facts about exposure are worth carrying. Arizona's billion-dollar weather and climate disaster count, summed across categories and CPI-adjusted, peaked at three events in 2021 (drought, flooding, and wildfire); the 2014 to 2024 cumulative window is dominated by drought and wildfire (NCEI, verified May 2026). And the agency setting the rules now has a confirmed director: Charles 'Chuck' Bassett was confirmed on January 12, 2026, succeeding interim director Maria Ailor; Barbara D. Richardson, appointed Director in 2023, had her nomination rejected by the Arizona Senate on a party-line vote in May 2025. Bassett's confirmation matters because the data-call results, any Council reconvening, and any rule-making on mitigation credits all run through his office. Material changes from any of these threads land in the changelog.

Do you also need a wrap (DIC) policy?

A wrap, formally a difference-in-conditions (DIC) policy, is a second policy that fills the gaps a named-peril fire policy leaves: liability, theft, water damage, and sometimes wind and hail. Because Arizona has no FAIR Plan, the wrap question here comes up against a surplus-lines policy, not a state plan. If the E&S quote on the table is fire-only or a stripped-down dwelling form, and the lender wants a standard HO-3 equivalent at closing, a DIC layered on top is the path most brokers use.

A DIC is bought through the same broker placing the underlying policy; it is not a retail product sold direct to consumers. In Arizona, those are surplus-lines brokers, stamped through the Surplus Line Association of Arizona. Specialty wholesalers write the DIC paper; the retail broker stacks it with the underlying policy and produces one bound binder package for the lender.

Typical extra cost is not publicly quoted and tracks the property's risk, the contents value, and the liability limits requested. The buyer-side ask is a stacked quote: the E&S premium and the DIC premium side by side. That is the document the title company needs at signing and the one the loan officer will price escrow against.

Alternatives to the FAIR Plan in Arizona

With no FAIR Plan in Arizona, two markets carry the homes admitted carriers won't take: small specialty admitted carriers first, then excess and surplus (E&S) lines if admitted markets decline.

An admitted carrier is one licensed by the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions; rates are filed with the state and policies are backed by the state guaranty fund if the insurer fails. Specialty admitted carriers, the ones that focus on harder-to-place homes (older roofs, prior claims, brush exposure, manufactured homes), are usually the first stop after a non-renewal. An independent agent who runs multiple carriers can quote four or five in one sitting; that is faster and cheaper than going straight to surplus lines.

If admitted carriers decline, the route is E&S: non-admitted carriers permitted to write Arizona risks through a licensed surplus-lines broker, with oversight from the Surplus Line Association of Arizona. E&S policies are not rate-regulated and carry no state guaranty-fund backing. Premiums run higher and forms are less standardized, but coverage is available where admitted markets will not go: high-value homes, wildfire-exposed properties in the wildland-urban interface, and homes with recent losses.

What to do this week if you just got a non-renewal notice

A non-renewal notice is jarring, especially when nothing about the home has changed. Here's the order of operations in Arizona, which has no FAIR Plan to fall back on.

1. Read the notice end to end and circle two dates: the effective date when coverage ends and any deadline for an appeal or proof of mitigation. The reason and the timeline drive every step below.
2. Call an independent agent, not a captive one. Ask them to run quotes from at least three admitted carriers licensed in Arizona. Be upfront about the non-renewal reason. A captive agent (State Farm, Allstate, Farmers) sells one company only; an independent runs the market.
3. If admitted carriers decline, ask the agent for a surplus-lines (E&S) broker. Arizona's last-resort market is the surplus-lines market, not a state pool. The Surplus Line Association of Arizona tracks the licensed brokers. Policies cost more and have fewer consumer protections, but they will write homes admitted carriers will not.
4. If the surplus policy comes back with gaps (lower limits, no liability, named-peril only), price a difference-in-conditions wrap to fill them. The wrap is a separate policy; an independent agent or specialty broker can quote one alongside the base coverage.
5. Tell the mortgage servicer in writing as soon as you have a replacement quote, even a preliminary one. Lenders force-place coverage if they think the home is uninsured, and force-placed insurance is usually two to three times the cost of a normal policy and protects only the lender.
6. Document any mitigation already done (defensible space, roof age, hardening) and keep receipts. Some carriers re-rate or re-offer if the original underwriting reason is resolved. See the full non-renewal playbook for the appeal letter template and the mitigation checklist.