Things look bad with California’s ever-sooner wildfire season seemingly approaching and what’s shaping up to be a severe drought across the Western U.S.

The plague of wildfires in the past few years in California have made things tough for residents and businesses, and in the last few years, larger and more frequent wildfires have been particularly bad for utilities.

One business segment that’s getting some bad breaks are contractors that work for utilities or that work in wildfire-prone areas.

Contractors performing different classes of work in these wildfire-plagued geographies –vegetation management, utility-related work, infrastructure development – have seen rapidly accelerating insurance rates, and in some cases these businesses have been forced to decline work due to high insurance rates or a complete lack of available coverage.

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