---
title: how to save money with ensurance
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/how-to-save-money-with-ensurance
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/how-to-save-money-with-ensurance.md
subtitle: "four bills the land can lower, how the saving is computed, and who recognizes it today"
category: how-to
---

# how to save money with ensurance

*four bills the land can lower, how the saving is computed, and who recognizes it today*

You would save money with **[ensurance](/manual/ensurance?from=guide)** by paying for the natural asset that keeps your bill down: the forest above the intake, the floodplain above the town, the marsh between the bay and the street, the reef off the beach. That land can hold back sediment, spread a flood and take the edge off a storm surge. When it works, a plant goes unbuilt, a shop stays open and a policy renews. The saving is the loss that did not arrive.

A forest can do that work whether or not anyone pays for it. Ensurance is built so the utility, the city, the company and the carrier it protects could pay for its condition, before a loss rather than after one. It is not the forest. No ensurance saving has been realized yet; every figure below is the field's, named and dated. [How to make money with ensurance](/guide/how-to-make-money-with-ensurance?from=guide) covers who earns on the work; this post covers who spends less because of it.

## how to save money with ensurance: the short answer

To save money with ensurance, name the bill a natural asset keeps down for you, compute your expected loss with and without that asset over a stated term, and pay your share of its protection, once a share is on offer, at a price below that avoided loss. **Avoided loss** is what you would otherwise spend or lose if the asset fails, minus the loss you still expect with it kept. It falls into four bills: avoided capital spend, avoided operating cost, protected earnings, and kept insurability and cost of risk.

:::johnson
**the cheapest loss is the one the land already stopped.** Start with the peril that drives the loss where your assets sit; it tells you which bill to work on first.

[See expected annual loss for your place →](/place?from=guide)
:::

The place view reads the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Risk Index (FEMA NRI): modeled expected annual loss by peril for the census tract. It tells you where to look, not your loss or what any intervention would save.

## the four bills ensurance is built to lower

| bill | what the land keeps from happening | who usually pays it | one field example |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Avoided capital spend** | The plant, levee, intake or rebuild you do not have to build | Utility, city | New York City's unfiltered Catskill and Delaware supplies |
| **Avoided operating cost** | Treatment, dredging, cleanup, suppression surge, repeat repairs | Utility, road authority | The Yuba Forest Resilience Bond in California |
| **Protected earnings** | Production, deliveries and room-nights that keep going | Company, farm, hotel | No sourced earnings case yet |
| **Kept insurability and cost of risk** | A policy that renews, a premium or deductible that falls where recognized, a lender's risk charge that does not rise | Owner, carrier, lender | Tahoe Donner's wildfire policy |

### avoided capital spend

In 1996 New York City estimated a filtration plant for its Catskill and Delaware supplies at $4 billion to $6 billion to build and about $300 million a year to run; a FY2026 Water Board report says an updated estimate "will significantly exceed $6 billion." The city has also spent on the order of $1.5 billion over decades protecting the watershed, as widely reported, not from a primary figure we could check. That is cumulative spend, not an annual cost, and not on the same basis as a 1996 plant estimate; neither counts the $300 million a year to run.

### avoided operating cost

A severe fire, and the sediment after it, can show up in the running costs of anyone who stores or treats water below a forest. The Yuba Forest Resilience Bond (FRB) raised $4 million to treat about 15,000 acres, with Yuba Water Agency committing $1.5 million over five years; no avoided-loss figure was published.

### protected earnings

There is no sourced earnings case yet. Avoided damage studies measure buildings, not trading days, so an earnings line has to come from the company's own records and is never added on top of the damage figure.

### kept insurability and cost of risk

Tahoe Donner's 2025 wildfire placement, reported 39% lower premium against the sponsors' stated counterfactual, is the one priced case; [how to lower insurance premiums](/guide/how-to-lower-insurance-premiums?from=guide) tells it in full. Sarah Conway, formerly the ecosystem resilience lead at Willis Towers Watson, argues that natural assets more reliably keep a place insurable than they cut its price, wildfire fuel work being the exception she names. Lenders carry this bill too: The Landbanking Group (TLG) prices physical risk left over after cash flows into a holder's cost of capital, through a Physical Risk Adjustment (PRA).

Each bill, payor by payor, is in [what ensurance saves you](/guide/what-ensurance-saves-you?from=guide).

## how the saving is computed

A saving is computed, not asserted, the way mitigation planners already do it:

1. **Without.** Expected annual loss if the asset degrades: the events, the exposed assets, the damage each does.
2. **With.** Same events, same exposure, with the intervention changing hazard or vulnerability through a named mechanism.
3. **The difference** is the expected annual avoided loss, over a stated term, at a stated discount rate.
4. **Counted once.** An insurer's payout and the repair it pays for are one loss. Gross sales lost are not net loss.

Set the price beside it on the same time basis. The **premium ceiling** is the present value of your avoided loss: pay less than that over the term and you are ahead. Never compare an annual payment with a ten-year total. In our draft model (illustrative only, not final), protecting a place that costs $1 million to secure, at a 5% yearly return the funders expect, comes to about $50,000 a year to keep it protected year by year. That is the whole group's annual payment. Your share belongs beside your own annual expected avoided loss, and if the payments stop, the protection and the saving stop.

Time basis cuts both ways. Charlotte-Mecklenburg has put $90.5 million into floodplain buyouts since 1999 and reports more than $50 million avoided so far; the case rests on future floods.

Modeled is not observed, so state the method and the range. Proximity is not protection: a wetland nearby does not prove any one property's loss falls. For the bookkeeping, [an avoided cost is the benefit you can book](/guide/an-avoided-cost-is-the-benefit-you-can-book?from=guide) sets out the invoice test.

## why the bill is split

One forest above one town can lower the utility's treatment bill, the road authority's cleanup bill, the carrier's claims and the homeowner's rebuild at once. No single payor should carry the whole cost of keeping it. In the shape ensurance is built for, each would pay a share against its own avoided loss, and the payor list is everyone the place protects.

One marsh works the same way. A peer-reviewed model (Narayan et al., 2017) put direct flood damage avoided by Hurricane Sandy's coastal wetlands at about $625 million across the northeastern US: spread over many owners, insurers and towns, none of whom paid for the marsh.

The Yuba bond shows several beneficiaries paying, the water agency, the US Forest Service and the state; no avoided-loss figure was published, so we cannot say the shares matched avoided loss. An insurer, CSAA Insurance Group, was one of four lenders in the pilot: capital up front, not a payor. Cost-side capital can secure the land early against credible commitments from the beneficiaries, so none of them has to finance the whole thing. [Fund the thing that shrinks the loss](/guide/fund-the-thing-that-shrinks-the-loss?from=guide) covers the position that capital holds.

The money goes to the place first, the land, water and living systems that do the work, and then to the people who hold and tend it (landowners, tribal nations, agencies, crews). Where those the land protects cannot pay, public or philanthropic money would carry their share.

## what is recognized today, and what is not

A lower loss becomes a lower price only when it is measured, rated at the scale where it acts (a slope or a marsh, not one parcel), and persists for the term.

| payor | what already recognizes the land | where it stops |
|---|---|---|
| **Water utility** | New York's avoided plant rests on a filtration avoidance determination from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) | It depends on continued watershed protection |
| **Flood insurance** | The National Flood Insurance Program's Community Rating System (CRS) credits community work, including open-space preservation, at 5% per class up to 45% | It is a community discount, not a rating of any home's risk |
| **Wildfire insurance** | Tahoe Donner, one placed policy priced on forest treatment | One association, one stated counterfactual |
| **Coastal insurance** | Graveline Bay, Alabama: no carrier credit. A reinsurer's model put average annual loss for 30 to 40 nearby homes 9% to 18% lower by zone, and a premium was never quantified | In one zone (Zone 3) modeled wave height rose in the two-year storm |
| **Lenders and investors** | TLG's PRA puts residual physical risk into the required return | A risk signal, not a funded response |

TLG also proposes paying stewards for measured outcomes (Nature Equity), so pricing the risk and funding the land are not opposite camps.

## what ensurance is, and is not

Ensurance is built to fund loss control at the source: the fuel treatment above the intake, the reconnected floodplain, the marsh that can take some of the surge, paid for by the people below it. It is not insurance: nothing is paid out after a loss, and it stands beside your policy rather than in place of it. [What ensurance cannot do](/guide/what-ensurance-cannot-do?from=guide) lists the limits.

**No ensurance saving has been realized yet.** Our engine reads exposure and tract-level expected loss today; estimating what one intervention on one parcel avoids downstream is planned, not built.

## pick your bill

| if you are asking | read |
|---|---|
| Which of the four bills is mine? | [What ensurance saves you: the four bills](/guide/what-ensurance-saves-you?from=guide) |
| How does fuel work or a marsh actually lower a loss? | [How an intervention lowers the loss](/guide/how-an-intervention-lowers-the-loss?from=guide) |
| What do the dollars look like next to doing nothing? | [The quote beside the cost of doing nothing](/guide/the-quote-beside-the-cost-of-doing-nothing?from=guide) |
| Does this change what my lender or investors charge? | [Ensurance and your cost of capital](/guide/ensurance-and-your-cost-of-capital?from=guide) |
| Who else should pay, and how much? | [Split the bill for what lowers it](/guide/split-the-bill-for-what-lowers-it?from=guide) |
| My bill is the insurance premium | [How to lower insurance premiums](/guide/how-to-lower-insurance-premiums?from=guide) |

There is a page for [utilities](/solutions/utilities?from=guide&topic=lower-the-loss), for [cities and counties](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=lower-the-loss) and for [companies](/solutions/corporations?from=guide&topic=lower-the-loss). To talk your bill through, [talk to someone who can help](/contact?from=guide&topic=lower-the-loss).

## frequently asked questions

### how do you save money with ensurance?

Name the bill a natural asset keeps down for you, compute your expected loss with and without it over the same term, and pay your share of its protection for less than that avoided loss. No ensurance saving has been realized yet.

### what is avoided loss?

What you would otherwise spend or lose if a natural asset fails, minus the loss you still expect with it kept, over a stated term and counted once. It is a model output, so it comes with a method and a range.

### can ensurance lower my insurance premium?

It can lower the loss. A premium follows only where a carrier measures and credits the change, as in one placed wildfire policy at Tahoe Donner in 2025. More often, healthy land helps keep a place insurable rather than cutting the price.

### is ensurance a kind of insurance?

No. Insurance pays after the loss; ensurance is built to pay for the condition of the land before it, so the loss is smaller. You need both.

This is not insurance, legal or tax advice.

## sources

[NYC press release 431-96 (1996)](https://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/96/sp431-96.html) — Filtration plant for the Catskill and Delaware supplies estimated at $4–6 billion to build and $300 million a year to run

[NYC Water Board, FY2026 upstate rate report](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nycwaterboard/downloads/pdf/blue_book/fy2026-upstate-rate-report.pdf) — An updated plant estimate "will significantly exceed $6 billion"

[NYC Department of Environmental Protection, watershed protection](https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/water/watershed-protection.page) — The watershed protection program. The $1.5 billion spend figure is widely reported and not stated on this page

[US EPA, New York City watershed](https://www.epa.gov/nyc-watershed) — Filtration avoidance determination for the Catskill and Delaware supplies

[World Resources Institute, Yuba Forest Resilience Bond](https://www.wri.org/news/release-new-forest-resilience-bond-will-finance-25-million-restoration-reduce-wildfire-risk) — Pilot of $4 million, about 15,000 acres, repaid by beneficiaries; Yuba Water's $1.5 million over five years

[Narayan et al., Scientific Reports 7:9463 (2017)](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-09269-z) — About $625 million direct flood damage avoided by wetlands in Hurricane Sandy, and 16% lower annual flood loss in Ocean County, modeled

[WTW, first-of-its-kind wildfire resilience insurance (April 2025)](https://www.wtwco.com/en-cm/news/2025/04/willis-and-the-nature-conservancy-launch-first-of-its-kind-wildfire-resilience-insurance) and [The Nature Conservancy](https://www.nature.org/en-us/newsroom/ca-wildfire-resilience-insurance0/) — Tahoe Donner: $2.5 million cover, 1,345 acres, premium 39% and deductible 89% lower than the stated counterfactual

[Sarah Conway, Ecosystems and the limits of price recognition](https://riskandresilienceledger.substack.com/p/ecosystems-and-the-limits-of-price) — "May not materially lower premiums, but it can prevent market exit"

[The Landbanking Group, physical risk pricing](https://www.thelandbankinggroup.com/physical-risk-pricing) — Physical Risk Adjustment for residual risk after cash flows

[The Landbanking Group, Nature Equity consultation paper](https://www.thelandbankinggroup.com/nature-equity-consultation-paper) — Contractual payments for measured preservation and uplift

[Mecklenburg County Storm Water Services, floodplain buyout program](https://stormwaterservices.mecknc.gov/floodplain-buyout-program) — Buyouts: $90.5 million invested since 1999, more than $50 million avoided to date, about $300 million projected; self-reported

[FEMA, Community Rating System](https://fema.gov/flood-insurance/rules-legislation/community-rating-system) — Credit of 5% per class, up to 45% at Class 1

[The Water Institute, Graveline Bay insurance pilot](https://thewaterinstitute.org/graveline-bay-insurance-pilot) and [project findings](https://water-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/Projects/Project-Findings-Graveline-Bay-Insurance-Pilot.pdf?dm=1783346302) — Modeled average annual loss by zone; premium change not quantified

[FEMA National Risk Index](https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/) — Expected annual loss by peril, census tract

## the series

1. [how to save money with ensurance](/guide/how-to-save-money-with-ensurance?from=guide) (this post)
2. [what ensurance saves you: the four bills](/guide/what-ensurance-saves-you?from=guide)
3. [how an intervention lowers the loss](/guide/how-an-intervention-lowers-the-loss?from=guide)
4. [the quote beside the cost of doing nothing](/guide/the-quote-beside-the-cost-of-doing-nothing?from=guide)
5. [ensurance and your cost of capital](/guide/ensurance-and-your-cost-of-capital?from=guide)
6. [split the bill for what lowers it](/guide/split-the-bill-for-what-lowers-it?from=guide)

Sister hub: [how to lower insurance premiums](/guide/how-to-lower-insurance-premiums?from=guide). Also: [how to make money with ensurance](/guide/how-to-make-money-with-ensurance?from=guide).