 Wildfire risk is front and center when we're thinking about the drivers of increased insurance premiums out west. That's lead author Ben Keyes, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. He noted that wildfire risk, which is directly tied to climate change, is expected to double over the next three decades. One of the specific drivers of the premium increases is the cost of reinsurance, policies that insurers themselves take out to protect against massive claims, costs that are then passed on to homeowners policy holders.