Why subsection (e) is the valuable one

The score itself is a number a board can do nothing about. “The key factors that adversely affected the wildfire risk score” is a list of things a board might be able to change — and it is the only route by which an association learns what an insurer's model actually objects to about its property.

That connects directly to the other 2025 insurance statute. House Bill 136, Chapter 105 of the 2025 Laws, effective October 1, 2025, amended §§ 33-15-1108, 33-16-203 and 33-18-210, MCA to provide that an insurer “may provide a benefit or a premium reduction to a homeowner's insurance policyholder for preventative measures,” that such a benefit “does not constitute a midterm premium increase,” and that the insurer must disclose it. The enumerated fire measures include:²

• “ignition-resistant, fire-resistive, or noncombustible building materials … including noncombustible roofing or coating, exterior glazing for fire protection”
• “maintaining an adequate outside water source”
• annual confirmation, if the insurer requests it, that the insured has employed defensible space landscaping
• “keeping a border of at least 5 feet of nonflammable landscaping around the insured property”
• compliance with fire prevention or community preparedness programs; fire or emergency alarm systems
• compliance with the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code where a building is in a wildland-urban interface area
• “providing sufficient access to the property for firefighting equipment and authorized emergency vehicles”

So the pair works as a loop: HB 533 tells you what the model penalises, HB 136 makes fixing it potentially pay.

The collision nobody has budgeted for

Here is the part that faces a Montana board before renewal season, because it is a governance problem dressed as an insurance problem.

Defensible space and a 5-foot nonflammable perimeter frequently conflict with landscaping covenants and architectural standards. Plenty of Montana declarations and design guidelines require foundation plantings, mandate wood fencing, permit or require shake roofs, specify vegetation types, or prohibit gravel and hardscape near the dwelling. Those are exactly the features a wildfire model marks adversely and an insurer would credit removing.

An association in that position has a real decision to make, and it is a decision about documents:

• Amend the design guidelines to permit noncombustible roofing, metal or noncombustible fencing, and a nonflammable perimeter — the minimal step, which stops the covenant from blocking an owner who wants the credit.
• Amend them to require it, which is how a community gets to community-scale mitigation and a portfolio-level argument at renewal — a larger governance project, and one that will be unpopular with some members.
• Do neither, and accept that the association's own standards are contributing to its premium.

Note that under Montana's 2025 covenant law an architectural committee cannot simply stop enforcing a landscaping standard for some owners and not others. House Bill 147 now defines “enforcement action” as enforcement “equally and consistently … on all properties subject to the covenant over at least a 2-year period.” Selective forbearance for the owners who want fire-safe landscaping puts the whole covenant at risk. Amending is the clean route.

What we cannot tell you, and it is the crux

Both statutes speak of “residential real property” and a “homeowner's insurance policyholder.” Whether a condominium association master policy qualifies under either is not addressed in the text of either one, and we found no guidance on it. Treat that as unresolved: do not assume the disclosure duty or the credit provisions reach your master policy, and do not assume they do not.

The second limit is sharper and more consequential. HB 533 reaches admitted insurers only — and many high-wildfire-risk Montana associations are placed in the surplus lines or nonadmitted market, where the disclosure duty does not apply at all. The associations with the worst scores are the likeliest to have no statutory right to see them.

What is free to try: an association or its producer can make the request in writing and see what comes back. Thirty days, five items, and the fifth one is the list of what to fix.³