Ron Rivlin
Ron Rivlin stood on the roof of his Pacific Palisades, CA, home, watching the blue sky turn orange as flames crested the hills across Sunset Boulevard. He thought he was safe.
The fire would need to jump six lanes of traffic to reach his home, then it would face a fortress. His house was custom-built with fire-retardant materials and outfitted with a sprinkler system to protect the 340 works of art inside—multiple pieces by Andy Warhol, a Damien Hirst, a John Baldessari, and countless others.
Rivlin grabbed four small paintings as he evacuated. By morning, his house was gone, and so was his $15 million collection, save for a single sculpture.
“Everything just incinerated,” he says.
As wildfires grow more frequent, fast-moving, and unpredictable, they’re not just threatening homes—they’re also reshaping the very concept of insuring high-value assets. And for an insurance market already strained by billion-dollar climate disasters, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
A new kind of insurance
Rivlin’s recovery came quickly, at least on paper. His insurer processed the claim in just five months, remarkably fast for a collection as large as his. But it still wasn’t enough.
“We were underinsured,” Rivlin says. If he could do it again, he’d over-insure.
“The difference in price is very insignificant,” he explains, but the cost of being underinsured can be devastating.
Stories like Rivlin’s are prompting a shift at the highest levels of the insurance market. For years, there’s been a glaring gap between what wealthy collectors need and what traditional insurers are willing to cover, especially in fire-prone regions.
Now, a new program aims to change that.
The Fine Art and Collections Wildfire Insurance Program offers wildfire coverage specifically for private collections valued at between $5 million and $250 million, launched by FortressFire, BMS Group, and EPIC Insurance Brokers. But unlike conventional insurance, this policy is contingent on verified fire-readiness.
Property owners must undergo rigorous inspections, implement tailored mitigation plans, and maintain year-round fire preparedness. That includes fire-resistant construction, ember-resistant vents, and seasonal service visits from wildfire experts.
“Wildfire risk has become a defining concern for owners of irreplaceable private collections,” Michael Ashker, chairman and CEO of FortressFire, said in a press release. “This program is a first-of-its-kind collaboration that blends science, service, and insurance innovation to protect not just property—but legacy and peace of mind.”
‘Physics punches probability in the face’
For decades, wildfire insurance relied on probability-based models—risk scores built on ZIP codes, historical burn data, and statistical forecasts. But that approach is starting to seem dangerously outdated.
“Everyone thinks fire starts from the inside out,” Rivlin says. “But the flames come from outside.”
That’s what FortressFire aims to fix. Instead of calculating the odds that a fire might come through a neighborhood, its model focuses on what happens when it does. They call it structure-fuel interaction modeling—and it’s rooted in physics, not probability.
Using aerial imagery and 3D modeling, FortressFire evaluates properties across five ignition vectors: convective heat (flame contact), radiant heat (like a heat lamp toasting a marshmallow), ember penetration (tiny embers entering vents), ember accumulation (on flat surfaces like roofs and ledges), and structure-to-structure spread (when nearby homes act as fuel themselves).
Rivlin’s home failed on multiple fronts. A 28-foot window popped from thermal stress, drawing flames inside and igniting a million-dollar Hirst painting. Wind funneled the fire into the basement, where temperatures hit an estimated 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the subterranean level of his home wasn’t spared.
Insurance can no longer just price risk. It has to prevent loss. That means modeling the physics of fire, identifying failure points, and proactively hardening structures before disaster strikes.
As Michele Cunningham, head of marketing for FortressFire, explains, “Physics punches probability in the face.”
Who gets to fireproof their legacy?
You don’t need to own a Warhol to have irreplaceable works of art. For most people, the masterpieces are family photo albums, handmade gifts, and heirlooms passed down through generations. They’re objects with no appraised value but priceless emotional weight.
Yet these everyday legacies don’t benefit from luxury-tier insurance or bespoke mitigation services. In fact, they’re often left completely exposed.
Today, 1 in 7 U.S. homeowners lacks home insurance, many because they’ve been priced out or dropped by carriers pulling back from high-risk areas. Even those who are insured and have faced catastrophic losses might find that fire-resilient upgrades aren’t fully covered.
Consider Los Angeles: Homeowners in the state’s Chapter 7A zone—areas governed by California’s strictest fire-safe building codes—can typically count on their policies to pay for rebuilding to those standards, which is estimated to cost $30,000 more than a typical rebuild.
But for the nearly 5,000 homeowners outside the Chapter 7A zone who lost their homes in the recent wildfires, their policies will not pay out for these fire-resilient, “above-code” upgrades, according to research from Headwaters Economics and Insurance for Good.
Their analysis also shows that these homes have the lowest median incomes, making it unlikely that they will be able to cover the costs out of pocket.
While new technology offers hope for a more fire-resilient future, the stark disparity in who can access it raises a painful question: Who actually gets to protect what matters most?
It’s a question FortressFire and its partners don’t shy away from. While their new program is designed for high net worth clients, Cunningham says the goal is broader.
“I wish I could say this is happening on a broad scale, and I can’t right now,” she says. “All I can do is point to these little lighthouses of success.”
By proving that prevention-based insurance can work and reducing catastrophic losses at the top end, she hopes to create a scalable model that could eventually reach more households.
“I hope that this fine art program will be part of a tipping point,” she adds. “That’s how we think we serve citizens and the marketplace in a meaningful way.”
‘Broken but Together’
The only artwork that survived the fire at Rivlin’s home was a steel sculpture by Michael Benisty, titled “Broken but Together.” Two fractured silhouettes hold hands—each missing pieces, but whole together.
It’s a fitting emblem for the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, and perhaps for what comes next. Because the future of wildfire protection isn’t just about shielding Monets. It’s about protecting families, homes, memories, and the masterpieces that don’t hang in galleries.
When I asked Cunningham to explain what makes this new model different, she started with ignition.
“This piece of paper will burn at 451 degrees,” she said, holding one up. FortressFire works to stop that moment from ever happening.
The image stuck with me. After speaking with Rivlin, I looked up the ignition point of steel: between 2,500 and 2,800 degrees—well beyond the estimated 2,000-degree inferno that engulfed his home.
That, in essence, is what makes FortressFire’s approach different. It’s not just a policy—it’s a partnership among scientists, insurers, and homeowners to prevent loss before it begins.
If it works, it could do more than protect priceless art. It could help restore stability to an insurance market in retreat and bring real protection back to the people and places who need it most.