The D-1 is a notice, not a warning.

What the D-1 is

The D-1 is a short notice required by California Insurance Code section 1764.1. You are given it before the policy is bound, and you sign it. It exists so that you are told, in type you cannot miss, that your insurer is non-admitted, meaning it has not filed its rates with California the way standard carriers do.

The state wrote the text, so nobody gets to draft a friendlier version. It is eight short numbered items on their own page, printed in large bold type, with a separate signature line and a date. The current version is identified at the bottom of the form as D-1, effective January 1, 2020.

It is a notice, not a contract. Signing it does not commit you to buy anything, does not waive a right, and does not change what your policy covers. It records that you were told.

Everyone signs one, so it is not a red flag

If you are seeing a D-1 for the first time, it can read like a warning label on the thing you were about to buy. It helps to know how routine it is. Every California surplus lines placement carries one: homes, apartment buildings, restaurants, contractors, high-value estates. It has worked this way for a long time.

More than 300,000 California homes are now insured in this market, up from about 50,000 in 2023. Every one of those homeowners signed this form. It is the ordinary paperwork of a placement being done in the correct order.

The better way to read it is as a disclosure you are owed. The state decided you should be told certain things before your money moves, and this form is how it makes sure that happens.

What the notice covers, in plain language

The eight items are worth reading rather than skimming. Here is what they tell you.

Nothing on that list is hidden from you elsewhere. It is a summary of the trade you are making: a market that will write your home, without the state's rate approval and without the state's safety net standing behind it.

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  Your insurer is not licensed by California. The form calls these companies nonadmitted or surplus line insurers.

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  California does not regulate their financial condition the way it regulates the carriers it admits.

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  They do not take part in California's guaranty funds, so if the insurer fails, no state fund pays your claims or protects your assets.

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  Your insurer should be licensed somewhere else, in another state or another country, and you may ask which one and ask for more information about the company.

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  California keeps an approved surplus lines list, and you may ask whether your insurer is on it.

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  You may contact the California Department of Insurance with questions, and the form prints its toll-free number and website for you.

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  If you needed coverage to start within two business days and the form reached you only after the policy took effect, you have five days from receiving it to cancel, with premium prorated and any broker fee returned.

What to read before you sign

The D-1 itself is fixed text, so it is not where mistakes live. Mistakes live in what comes with it. Before you sign, read the quote or binder next to it and check five things: the property address, the dwelling coverage amount, the deductible, the effective date, and whether the taxes and fees are itemized.

Then ask the question the form does not answer. The D-1 never names your insurer. It tells you to ask, which means the name is available on request, and you should request it. Ask for the insurer's name, its financial strength rating, and the date that rating was last affirmed, and ask whether it appears on California's approved surplus lines list.

And take the time. The form reaches you before anything is final, which is the point of it: reading it, asking your questions, and getting the answers in writing all happen while you can still change your mind.

A missing D-1 is the real warning sign

The form is not the thing to worry about. Its absence is. If your home was placed with a non-admitted insurer and nobody ever put this notice in front of you, you did not get something you were owed, and it is reasonable to wonder what else you did not get.

If that happened, ask the person who arranged your policy for the D-1. If you do not get a straight answer, the California Department of Insurance takes consumer questions and complaints directly, and its number is printed on the form itself.

Signed, the D-1 is a receipt showing you were told what you were buying. Never offered at all, it is a question worth asking out loud, and that is a different conversation entirely.

Common questions