Unlike other insurance companies that pulled back or pulled out of California after catastrophic wildfire losses, Kin is moving in the other direction, leaving more than 684,000 Californians relying on California’s Fair Plan.
The company expanded to help California homeowners get coverage in the weeks following the January 2025 wildfires, and now with condo insurance and flood insurance, Kin is deepening that commitment.
“We started helping Californians find insurance before the wildfires in January 2025 and have never looked back,” said Kin founder and CEO Sean Harper. “Kin’s commitment has only grown since then. Offering flood and condo insurance options are two more ways Kin is helping homeowners protect their most valuable assets, in a market where it’s hard to do so.”
Kin offers condo insurance options designed specifically for individuals who are often shut out of the road car insurance market, including new home buyers, properties in distressed or wildfire-prone areas, and unusual situations such as lapses in insurance, substandard electrical panels, or short-term rental operations like Airbnb and VRBO.
Kin’s review process does not evaluate all wildfire-impacted properties in the same way, but instead considers specific mitigation measures homeowners have taken, such as creating defensible space gaps and fire and waterproofing installations.
Likewise, flood insurance remains an important but elusive asset for California residents, especially since overland flooding is excluded from standard home insurance policies.
The California Department of Water Resources reports that more than 7 million people in the state live in areas at risk of severe flooding.
However, only a quarter of people living in high-risk areas have insurance.
Government flood maps classify residential properties into risk zones, meaning lenders are not required to purchase flood insurance for homes in Zone X or other low-risk designated areas, so most homeowners are uninsured.
However, because these maps are based on historical data, they do not reflect conditions in California. In recent years, several properties marked as low risk have been flooded due to changing rainfall patterns.
Kin’s new insurance option helps qualifying California homeowners add flood coverage to their existing home insurance policy, a simpler path to protection than the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) without the need for a separate policy.
The coverage is an endorsement of their existing home insurance policy and does not require a 30-day wait for it to take effect. For flood-related water damage, the endorsement applies the same dwelling and personal property limits as the base home policy, rather than the reduced sub-limits of many private flood add-ons.
The National Flood Insurance Program caps building coverage nationwide at $250,000, regardless of the actual value of the home. Instead, Kin’s endorsement is based on the homeowner’s actual policy limits.
Angel Conlin, chief insurance officer at Kin, commented: “Flooding is one of the most underinsured risks in California, and most homeowners don’t realize it until it’s too late.
“Standard homeowners insurance doesn’t cover flood damage, and most Californians don’t have a separate policy. Kin helps homeowners find policies that accurately assess flood risk at the individual property level, and we can now offer private riders to make it easier for homeowners to close that gap.”
