Praxis envisions a multi-partner coalition to build and deploy a Business and Home Hardening Workforce Program across Southern California and, ultimately, the Western states. Community colleges and technical schools would deliver a unified, industry-informed curriculum—developed in collaboration with leading insurance carriers (see hyperlink for draft curricula)—that certifies students in the full suite of Business and Home Hardening skills needed for residential, commercial, and community-scale risk-reduction. The insurance industry would also help shape construction-quality criteria, inspection standards, and the premium-discount framework that rewards compliant work, while California state leadership supports the effort through legislative action or targeted executive orders.
Graduates of these training programs would have a direct pathway into the Business and Home Hardening For-Profit Cooperative, where workers hold equal ownership shares, participate in profit-sharing, and rely on the cooperative for work assignments, materials management, and operational structure. Utilities may also participate as forward-leaning partners, recognizing Business and Home Hardening as a critical preventive measure that reduces wildfire risk, infrastructure losses, and future litigation exposure. A fully realized Business and Home Hardening program offers the insurance industry one of the most promising pathways to stabilize risk, reduce losses, and restore competitive balance across California and the Western States. As wildfire severity escalates and claims costs reach historic highs, insurers face mounting pressures from regulators, reinsurers, and consumers. Business and Home Hardening provide a new operating model—one that moves the industry from reactive loss payments to proactive risk prevention.
For insurers, the benefits are direct and structural. A certified Business and Home Hardening workforce producing consistent, verifiable mitigation work dramatically reduces the probability of catastrophic losses to homes, businesses, and entire communities. This lowers exposure, decreases litigation expenses, and reduces the adversarial dynamics that have increasingly characterized recovery efforts. By helping develop the curriculum, inspection standards, and quality-assurance protocols for Business and Home Hardening, insurers can ensure that mitigation work aligns with actuarial expectations and complies with existing California regulatory frameworks. A robust Business and Home Hardening industry also supports a more competitive and fair marketplace. When risk is systematically lowered across entire regions—not just parcel by parcel—insurers can re-enter markets they previously withdrew from, price premiums more predictably, and compete on service, innovation, and customer value rather than defensive risk avoidance. Communities benefit from broader availability of coverage, reduced cancellations, and more transparent premium-discount structures tied to certified mitigation work.
Most importantly, Business and Home Hardening positions insurers as active partners in the safety and resilience of the communities they serve. By committing to a 100% Hard- Hardened environment—including homes, businesses, neighborhoods, and shared landscapes—the insurance sector helps create a new normal in the West: a region where prevention is built in, catastrophic risk is dramatically reduced, and insurers can thrive within a sustainable, socially responsible business model. This shift—from managing destruction to financing prevention—represents the future of wildfire-risk management and is central to Praxis’ vision of a unified, resilient, and economically stable Western wildfire economy.