Average 2026 house insurance premium in the US is supposedly $3,057. Some states are more expensive, such as Florida at $8,458.
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Well, our state is estimating over $1 billion in losses/damage due to 2 weeks of storms here. I’m sure that will make our rates go up as well. 
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I would love to pay that for homeowner’s insurance. I pay 4x more than the average listed for my state. And I’m in an area with zero natural disasters and not near a flood zone. For a <3000 sq ft home.
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Side question: Do any posters use USAA for home/auto insurance? Several years ago, we called for a quote. It was competitive, and we were ready to switch. But, USAA required a home-visit AFTER we started with them. They would not schedule the home visit until several months after becoming a paying customer.
I have no problem with a home-visit. It has been so long since we shopped for another provider, is that normal?
I have a huge issue with it occuring after you agree to a quote, dropped the former insurance provider, and started paying USAA. If they determined for whatever reason, the quote was no longer valid, I’m not sure how easily we could return to our current provider, and would definitely lose our existing “long-term customer” discount.
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Looking at home insurance rates over small periods of time is not particularly helpful. So although a 3-year lookback is better than a 1-year lookback, looking at it across a 5 or 10 year period is even more telling. Additionally, rates of increase can matter, but it also depends on what the starting price was.
For instance, Louisiana has the third-highest home insurance rates according to the table at the bottom. If one was looking at the national map near the top of the article, though, one would think that Louisiana was in pretty good shape across two of the three tabs because over the last two years it has remained relatively stable or had a very modest drop. The 2023-2025 change gives a better look, but still doesn’t tell the whole story.
This brief gives a look at home insurance costs in Louisiana, and between 2021-2024 it reported a 43% increase, with only a little overlap between 2023-2025 of the article shared above.
Though I couldn’t (quickly) find an average premium cost over time, this graph shows the amount in Louisiana homeowner periods over a 20-year period, and the graph shows that the premiums nearly tripled over a 20-year period (source). One might argue whether the Louisiana home insurance market needed a price correction prior to Hurricane Katrina, but people who are talking about a 38% or 43% price increase over a 2 or 3 year period, though bad, is nothing in comparison to a 300% price increase which is what many homeowners have been experiencing.
We switched from Chubb to USAA and are paying almost 40% less for the same homeowners/auto/ liability coverage. The USAA home inspection consisted of sending in photos of various areas of our house. After USAA received the photos, we got a call from an inspector who asked us to go to various areas and take more photos or to just show her (Face Time) a specific area. Afterwards, we had to make one repair and it was not a costly fix. Also, we had 6 months to do the repair, which was more than enough time. The price for our coverage did not go up.
I was in a car accident recently and my interactions with USAA in this case were abysmal. After an initial assessment (USAA said my car was totaled) it took the USAA adjuster 13 days to get back to me. The accident was not my fault (USAA agreed) so I was especially annoyed because I had to get a rental car and the tow car company kept calling me to ask about releasing my car, etc. etc. The towing company owner said USAA was quicker in responding when there were local people working for them. He said that they try to do everything from their headquarters in San Antonio or from one of their regional offices.
I’m beginning to think that no insurance company is “your friend”–they all want to pay out as little as possible.
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I’m in Southern California. Specifically, most of you know, I’m in San Diego. My house is at the base of a hill, that is considered deeded open space.
We have now been classified as “Zone Zero”, which means that we are required to have 0 to 5 feet of ember resistant material around our home. In other words zero tolerance of plant life. All of our bark had to be removed. we replaced it with $8500 worth of rock.They wanted us to change our wooden fencing, but because we have to share the expense with neighbors, no one wanted to do that nor could afford it.
Everyone’s insurance around us has:
- either been canceled, or,
- the rates have gone sky high,
- or both
- and/or clearance of flammable foliage is being required to maintain our insurance.
We had to yank out palm trees because the tips of the palms were not 10 feet apart. We had to yank out bird of paradise plants, that are required to have 2 feet of clearance for every foot of height.
The Hartford wanted us to have 50 feet of clearance from our neighbors. If you’ve ever been to Southern California, the houses aren’t built 50 feet apart.
Our insurance broker had to call them, by our request, to let the insurance company know that the properties here are built closely at maybe 10 feet apart.
If you’ve been denied insurance by two insurance companies, then you’re eligible to get the California Fair plan, which means that the state of California will find an insurer, but the rates will be between $10k and $15,000 a year minimum, and it’s only fire insurance. It won’t cover flood, or any other kind of damage or theft insurance for the home. You have to pay more to add additional coverage.
In my decades of living here, we’ve never had it this badly and we know it’s climate change.
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In our case, MetLife sent a rep to look at our roof several months after we paid our annual bill. The wet behind ears guy glanced at the roof from the driveway and determined that it needed to be replaced. Never mind we had a licensed roofer inspect the roof and determine it was good for another 10 years. MetLife sided with their own “expert” and sent us a letter that they would not renew our policy next year. So we found another insurer - way cheaper.
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We had two bad experiences recently. We were paying a crazy amount for our home and auto policies so I shopped around and almost halved our premium. Travelers came out to inspect a month later and wanted to drop us because we had a wood stove. They gave us a stupid list of demands we were unwilling to deal with. They also made us sign something saying our 23 yo son would never drive any of our cars (he has his own cars and policies - and no violations - but he literally was forbidden to drive ours), and they raised our auto policy almost immediately for no reason. So we started shopping around again. State Farm said I was uninsurable for homeowners because my mother, who has dementia and for whom I’m conservator, had a flood claim and my name was associated with it. No matter that my name is not on the property or insurance nor that it was due to a water main break and no fault of hers. I’m simply the contact person because my mother is in memory care. I had to call Lexus Nexus to try to get my name off a list State Farm uses. No idea if it happened because it takes a while. Finally landed with The Hartford, and so far so good. They did come out to inspect the property and we have to replace a couple of pipes around our water heater. Will not be changing again anytime soon. We have never had a homeowner claim and the auto claim we had is probably 20 years ago. Crazy.
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I have had USAA for years. We’ve never had a home visit.
Yikes! Sounds awful! We have an insurance broker and so far have never been tempted to try to find cheaper policies on our own. We want insurers that will work with us and our agent in the event we need to make a claim and I believe she chooses insurers based on that. We decided to go with a “cheaper” policy on a rental property but they sent someone to “inspect” and photograph and we had to do a LOT of repairs that were much higher than the slightly lower cost of new policy (but is better for reselling the property–it IS listed for reselling).
Our personal policies–homeowner policy used to cover hurricane as well but after hurricane Iniki did a lot of damage, we have had to get a separate hurricane policy which is high as well as the homeowner policy. We also carry a flood policy and excess flood (but fortunately have never made a claim on hurricane nor flood). We did make a homeowner’s claim once about 30+ years ago when we were burgled. They waived the deductible and paid us promptly. No claims since! We haven’t made an auto claim in over a decade either and our policy is fairly reasonable (except collision coverage on our fairly newish cars).
Insurance is definitely high, but having it helps us sleep better, especially with the crazy weather!