In the past year, some big insurance companies have won approvals from regulators for premium hikes ranging from 4 percent to 7 percent. And a round of requests for similar increases has been submitted to the state insurance commissioner. In a state parched by a three-year drought, wildfires are at least partly to blame for the price increases, say industry officials and some consumer advocates. 'We seem to be having year after year of (major wildfire) events when before they occurred every six or seven years,' said Sam Sorich, president of the California Association of Insurance Cos., a lobbying group in Sacramento. But Amy Bach, executive director of San Francisco-based United Policyholders, said she was more concerned about the quality of the coverage than its cost. The result, she said, could be more fire victims finding they didn't have enough coverage to pay the entire cost of rebuilding their homes. 'My big concern is that the insurance companies are going to use these fires as an excuse to increase their rates, and the under-insurance problem is going to be the same as it ever was,' Bach said. 'People are going to be paying more for less.' With an estimated 15 million homes statewide, even a tremendously destructive wildfire, like the blaze that destroyed 3,000 San Diego homes in 2003, shouldn't cause a massive surge in the cost of insuring a home, experts say. In addition, rate increases, which must be approved by the state Department of Insurance, are based on three years' of loss experience, delaying the effect on premiums of the fires that occur in any one year. Dramatic images of firestorms sweeping the San Gabriel Mountains produce fear and dread 'but don't make for any actuarial implication,' said Douglas Heller, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica group. 'We're talking about not even 1 percent of homes.' But the cumulative effect of six years of more frequent, larger and costlier fires in built-up parts of once rural, extended suburbs is bound to show up in homeowners' insurance bills, industry officials say. Late in 2008, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner approved a 6.9 percent increase in homeowners' insurance for the state's biggest insurer, State Farm Mutual, and a 4.1 percent hike for third-ranked Farmers Insurance. A request for a 6.9 percent increase at No. 2 Allstate Corp. still is pending. The commissioner is reviewing requests for similar-sized rate jumps from State Farm, Farmers, Hartford, Travelers and a number of smaller companies. A spokesman for Poizner characterized the premium increases he has approved as 'negligible' compared with a series of rate cuts that began in 2006 under his predecessor, John Garamendi, and continued into Poizner's tenure, which began in 2007. For example, premiums dropped 18 percent at Farmers in 2006, 20 percent at State Farm in 2007 and 28 percent at Allstate in mid-2008. Reductions approved by Poizner saved policyholders an estimated $700 million, according to the Department of Insurance. But even as insurers were rolling back rates, pressures were building to raise them again. A wave of wildfires early this decade, combined with the housing boom, led to greater-than-expected increases in rebuilding costs, said Bob Devereux, a State Farm spokesman. Faced with potentially catastrophic losses, Allstate opted in 2007 to limit its risk by no longer seeking new homeowners' insurance customers in California, said spokesman Peter DeMarco. Although California for now remains a competitive market for homeowners' insurance, Bach is concerned that more companies could follow Allstate's lead and partially or completely pull out of the state. That's what happened in Florida after a rash of hurricanes there. 'I'm worried that people are going to have fewer choices,' he said, and be forced into a state-backed, insurer-of-last-resort plan that provides limited coverage. A smaller insurance market with poor coverage could exacerbate the under-insurance problem following fires that wipe out entire neighborhoods, Bach said. In 2008, Poizner proposed legislation to encourage both insurers and policyholders to ensure that dwellings have enough coverage to pay for their reconstruction. The bill, Poizner's spokesman said, failed to gain 'traction' and was dropped. 