Factors Influencing Southern California Homeowners' Purchase Intent for Exterior Fire Defense Systems

Overview

Southern California has experienced a massive rise in wildfire frequency and severity over the past decade. As these disasters become worse, homeowners face rising insurance premium costs and fewer coverage options. One underexplored mitigation technology is an automatic exterior fire defense system, which existing research has proven provides significant protection by detecting and preventing ignitions caused by embers. These systems would not only limit property damage, but they would also likely make homeowners more attractive to insurance companies and possibly reduce costs on their coverage. No study yet has examined Southern California homeowners’ interest in these systems. This study analyzes emotional, financial, and experiential variables that predict Southern California homeowners' willingness to invest in exterior fire defense systems. An online survey was distributed using Instagram, Facebook, Nextdoor, and through in-person flyers in local neighborhoods, yielding 108 total respondents, with 103 qualifying as Southern California homeowners. Cost was found to be the main deterring factor stopping consumers from buying Exterior Fire Defense Systems, with nearly 77% of respondents' maximum cost willing to pay not reflecting the current market price for these systems. Regression analysis revealed that a collection of wildfire vulnerability and concern factors was responsible for approximately 40% of the variance in investment likelihood (R² = 0.399). Chi-square testing indicated homeowner trust in system effectiveness was a statistically significant predictor of maximum purchase price. On the other hand, annual income did not predict the maximum price willing to pay for a system. Most notably, including an insurance discount on their purchase dramatically increased homeowners’ likelihood to invest. The results suggest that maximizing consumer trust in efficacy and insurance companies giving a discount for homeowners with these systems installed can each lead to much broader adoption of them in Southern California.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division) · Entry S-03-27

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Behavioural and Social Sciences projects
• CSEF Behavioural and Social Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2026 project