What the D-1 form is, and why you sign it.

The D-1 is a short notice required by California Insurance Code section 1764.1. You are given it before the policy starts, and you sign it.

It exists so that you are told, in type you cannot miss, that your insurer is not licensed by the State of California. That is what non-admitted means, and it is why the insurer does not file its rates with the state the way standard insurers do.

The state wrote the text, so nobody gets to draft a friendlier version. It is eight short numbered items on a form of their own, 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.

If you are seeing a D-1 for the first time, it can read like a warning label. It is easy to worry about the thing you were about to buy. It helps to know how routine it is.

Every specialty insurance policy written in California comes with one: homes, apartment buildings, restaurants, contractors, high-value estates. It has worked this way for a long time.

Specialty insurers wrote more than 300,000 California home policies in 2025, up from about 50,000 in 2023, according to the Surplus Line Association of California. Every one of those policies came with this form. It is the ordinary paperwork of a policy being set up the right way.

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.

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. You get an insurer that will write your home, without the state's rate approval and without the state's safety net standing behind it.

• Your insurer is not licensed by California. The form calls these companies nonadmitted or surplus line insurers.
• California does not regulate their financial condition the way it regulates the insurers it licenses.
• 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.
• Your insurer should be licensed elsewhere, in another state or country, and you may ask which one, and ask for more details.
• California keeps an approved surplus lines list, and you may ask whether your insurer is on it.
• You may contact the California Department of Insurance with questions, and the form prints its toll-free number and website for you.
• Say you needed coverage to start within two business days, and the notice reached you only after the policy took effect. You get five days from receiving the notice to cancel. Your payment is prorated and any broker fee is returned.

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 the binder (your temporary proof of coverage), next to it. Check five things: the property address, the rebuild 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. Also ask whether it appears on California's approved surplus lines list.

And take the time. The form reaches you before anything is final. That 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.

The form is not the thing to worry about. Its absence is.

If your home was placed with a specialty insurer and nobody ever put this notice in front of you, that is a real gap. You did not get something you were owed. 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. Its number is printed on the form itself.

Section 1764.1 requires the specialty broker on your policy to keep your signed D-1 at least five years, and to show it to you on request. If you never received and signed one, the same section says you "may cancel the insurance so placed," with your payment prorated and any broker fee returned.

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.