I had a real estate agent tell us "that house is uninsurable due to the roof." It was a wooden roof in a high fire zone. A good agent can be useful.

The state of California can't force insurance companies to write new policies or to not cancel existing policies. To make matters worse, insurance companies can't generally raise rates on existing policies so their only recourse is cancellation.

If all else fails there is a high risk FAIR plan as insurer of last resort, but it is much more expensive and covers nothing but fire.