Talk about being ahead of the rest in your market. Giving everyone a motive to torch their homes, the Fireman’s Fund is offering additional insurance that allows people who have lost their homes to rebuild to the highest green standards out there. This type of insurance is both innovative, environmentally, and for its insurance model.

Most insurance seeks to compensate for what is lost. This insurance compensates, then upgrades what one had before. The green insurance option is to be an add on to normal insurance, a nominal fee for the value of the service. Green building or green renovating, especially up to LEED standards, is still extremely pricey for moderately wealthy individuals. LEED certification itself can be a many thousand dollar process.

Again, homeowners only get the money if they lose their home in a catastrophic manner for which they are covered in the first place. With that said, it is interesting to see the different ways that green buildings’ popularity is impacting fiscal markets; people want to afford it. There are other financial options that are not yet being taken advantage of; the Firemans’ Fund may not be thinking big enough with their green insurance, which could be applied to car upgrades, climate insurance, or climate liability/ malpractice insurance (buy up, Exxon).