Questions people ask

What is the Defensible Space Score?

It is a free self-assessment of the ground around your house. You answer fourteen questions about vegetation, spacing, and the first five feet against the walls, and you get a score, a score range, and a documented list of which defensible space measures your property already meets. The measures are not ours. They are the items California defensible space guidance sets out.

Is this an inspection?

No. You are describing your own property and we are organising your answers against the published methodology. Nobody visits the property. An inspector, a fire safe council, or your insurer will each want their own verification.

How long does it take?

Around five minutes. Several questions ask you to step outside and look at something, so it helps to be at home.

Will this lower my insurance bill?

We will not tell you what you will save, and we will not guess, because the honest answer depends on your carrier and your property. What we can tell you is more useful. California regulation requires insurers who price on wildfire to reflect mitigation in your rate and to tell you in writing what each specific measure does to your own policy. Your assessment gives you the documented list to send them, so that number comes from the only party who can legitimately produce it.

What is the difference between this and the Home Hardening Score?

Home hardening is about the building. Roof, eaves, vents, windows, wall base, and deck. Defensible space is about the ground and the vegetation around it. They are the two halves of wildfire mitigation and they are measured separately.

The two numbers are not comparable and should never be averaged. The same property can score well on one and poorly on the other, and both results are correct, because they are measuring different things.

What is Zone 0, and is it required by law?

Zone 0 is the five feet closest to your house. The Board of Forestry approved a statewide rule for it on 19 August 2026. That rule is not yet filed with the Office of Administrative Law or the Secretary of State, and no effective date exists. Some cities and counties already have their own requirements. The work in this zone is worth doing now either way, and we ask about it because the evidence on ember ignition is emphatic.

Is this the same as an IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home designation?

No, and it is not a substitute for one. Wildfire Prepared Home is a paid third-party designation that includes an in-person evaluation. We are not affiliated with IBHS and this assessment carries no endorsement from them. Think of this as the free step you take first, to see where you stand and what a designation would ask of you.

What is the score range, and why is it not a single number?

Every result is shown as three things together: the score, a range around it, and an evidence tier. The range is a declared uncertainty band. It says how much the number could move once someone actually looks at the property. It is not a confidence interval and it is not a statistical estimate.

The more we have seen of your property, the narrower that band gets. Answers alone give the widest band.

What is the evidence tier, and why does self-report stop at 90?

The evidence tier records what the score is based on. Answers only, answers plus photographs, or answers plus a complete walkaround.

An assessment built on your answers alone caps at 90. The last ten points are the part we have actually seen. That is not a comment on your honesty. It is that presence is provable from an image and absence is not. A woodpile in frame proves a woodpile. Five clean feet in frame proves only that those five feet are clean.

What does the walkaround video do?

It does not add points. There is no upload bonus and there never will be one.

It does two things. It narrows your range, and it can correct an answer, after which the score is recomputed from the corrected answers using the same published methodology. It is also the only asset that can move an answer upward, because it is the only one that shows the whole property rather than a chosen corner of it.

What happens if I answer "Not sure"?

Nothing bad. "Not sure" is left out of the arithmetic entirely, on both sides. It is not counted as a failure and it does not lower your score. It is listed on your results as an open item, so you know what to go and check.

Why is the lowest possible score 5?

The methodology has a disclosed floor built into it, so the arithmetic cannot bottom out at zero. We state it plainly rather than hide it, because a scale that says zero implies a certainty about a property that no self-assessment has.

What if I disagree with something the video changed?

Every correction is shown to you with a one click dispute. A score you have already been given is never quietly rewritten. Disputing produces a new assessment, and the original stays on record alongside a note saying what changed and why.

What do you do with my address and my answers?

We store them so you can come back to your assessment, and we use them to produce your score and your documentation. Your address is not part of the scoring arithmetic. We do not sell your information. GPS coordinates are stripped from every photograph or video you send us.

Who is behind this?

The Defensible Space Score is built by AACI Group, which also operates Five Bays Insurance Agency, a licensed California insurance agency, California Department of Insurance license 6016871. We say so plainly because you should know it when you read anything here that touches on insurance.

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