Mine was $1120.00 last year, but I expect it will go up by at least $100.00. We had some bad fires up here last summer. We only have one carrier available to us.
From the perspective of the company, something bad already happened (twice!): they had to pay a claim. It’s just like with auto insurance–if you’ve had two at-fault accidents, you’re probably not a very good driver so the chances of another accident are higher than the company is comfortable with. In most states you can be cancelled only for non-payment or fraud, but they can “decline to renew” at the end of every policy term (usually twelve months for homeowners insurance), and your perceived risk is definitely sufficient grounds. With some insurance companies, a sharp decline in your credit score also raises your perceived risk and is adequate grounds for a decision not to renew.
You can almost always get a “non-standard” policy if nobody will write a standard one. There’s usually an insurer of last resort who will take almost anybody. Premiums and deductibles are higher, exclusions are more numerous, and you may not be able to get all of the coverages you want, but you can get very basic coverage.
A $60K deductible, yikes! Thanks for sharing that, I had no idea.
This has been a very interesting thread and something to keep in mind when moving to purchase another home in an area I might not be as familiar with. Since my experience has been that home owner’s insurance was low, it has slide off my radar to not be a real concern. Being in the East Coast, we are much more use to being concerned with property taxes than anything else, because they are higher and continue to increase.
But from the kind responses here, it is clear that it can be much more expensive depending on the location, and there isn’t a guarantee that coverage is going to be a low cost. Going from $600 a year to $4K would be a very unwelcome surprise. I’m not complaining that the higher cost is not justify, but it would be unexpected.
Just as an extreme example…So while moving from $10K a year in property taxes to a place where they are $7K a year, but if the home owner’s insurance turned out to be higher like $4K a year instead of $600.00 a year, that would certainly catch me off-guard.
So when looking at purchasing a new property, it sounds like a safe plan to get home owner’s insurance quotes to factor in the cost to be prepared.
So what I learned from this thread mostly, is the next time someone in my area complains about home owner’s insurance (a crummy $50.00 a month), I’m going to tell them to STFU.
Your homeowner’s insurance premium is less a factor on where you live, and more of a factor of how much your home is being insured for (i.e. the value of your home). To compare $50/month to $3,000 per year and say it must be because you live in Louisiana is a bit myopic. The better assumption is that you live in a house that’s probably valued at 5x more than mine.
Regional differences can contribute to disparity in values of similar sized homes, and regional differences can impact home insurance premiums. For example, in the Midwest, the biggest homeowner claim is for hail damage on the roof of your house. If you upgrade the shingles on your home to “hail proof” shingles, then you can see your homeowner premiums decline by as much as 60%. Depending on the value of your house, this investment can be recouped in about 3-4 years just through the premium savings.
Home value is certainly important. Actually, it is the rebuild cost that counts - the value of the land is not relevant. However, my example and others in this thread show that where you live can have a huge effect. Here in the South East, if you are near the coast, that’s hurricane country. My two houses, both in Georgia, are valued within 2% of each other for insurance. The one near the coast costs three times as much to insure. Add in the flood insurance and the coastal property is 4.5 times as expensive as the inland one.
I’m in the southeast UK. Just renewed at £125 for the year. About .04% of the house value. In one of the car insurance threads recently I noticed that costs in the US are far higher than here too. I guess having the NHS means they don’t have to factor in medical claims.
Regular homeowner’s insurance for me is about $375 a year. The killer is earthquake insurance, it’s about $2,500 a year. The city I live in is trying to push through plan for covering homes in case Mt. Rainier blows and wipes out the city. It’s a very expensive and not widely accepted plan.
Coastal North Carolina, 2,750 square foot home, appraised at $365,000 last year when I refinanced, homeowner’s $460/year, wind and hail $1,953/year.
For what it’s worth, homeowners insurance in the US comes in four basic categories:
Hazard - covers fire, water damage from within (burst pipes, etc.) and some basic other stuff, but excludes flood, earthquake and wind damage. This is usually pretty cheap.
Flood - covers just that, damage caused by flooding from outside the home but specifically excludes hurricanes. Federal flood zone maps determine whether flood insurance is needed and at what risk level it will be priced. Depending on where one lives, this can be very expensive coverage and in a few places virtually impossible to get at any price.
Windstorm - also referred to as hurricane coverage, because that’s what it covers. Only required in coastal states, for obvious reasons. Where required, this can be very expensive as well
Earthquake - covers damage from earthquake. Again, depending on where one lives this can be very expensive coverage.
*Note: the coverage listed above are illustrative only, you may have more or less included in your policy
Given the above, I would guess that the lowest of the rates in the posts above are hazard coverage only. Flood, earthquake and wind coverages are wildcards that can individually be 2-5 times hazard premiums. Woe be unto anyone who lives in an area where the mortgage company requires all four!
I thinks I’m about $30/month, more or less, but my house is a shit-hole in the low-crime middle of nowhere. So, there’s that.
My house is a two bedroom ranch style with full basement built in 1956 in the upper Great Plains. I just paid $952 for the year. My insurance goes up a certain percentage per year to keep up with the replacement value. It’s currently at something like $150,000. I actually bought the house for less than $90,000 and currently owe about $75,000.
My property taxes are about $1,100 if I recall correctly. I just got the bill but couldn’t remember the number.
Both my property tax and insurance are paid with the mortgage.
When I was shopping for houses down here in FL, I found one I really liked that was within my budget ($225K). I was all ready to make an offer on it when I checked the insurance cost - $7500 per year because it was on the east side of I-95. Needless to say, that put the kybosh on my purchase.
Working in mortgage servicing I’ve learned not all insurance companies automatically do a new quote when they renew your policy; if you haven’t gotten a new quote from your current insurer or a different insurer in the last two to three years and you haven’t made a claim it would behoove you to do so.
Is this mortgage protection insurance, or structural repairs and rebuilding, or contents insurance?
And do you have the really annoying practice they have in the UK of relying on the inertia of loyal customers, hoicking up the renewal premium each year, in order to subsidise cheap offers to new customers? I really resent having to shop around every year if I’m not to be rooked.
Home owner’s insurance in the US covers repairs/rebuilding and the contents. I should mention, it doesn’t cover flood insurance, that is a separate policy. Many people don’t get flood insurance unless it is a requirement by the mortgage company. If the home is in a flood zone, you can get a better rate on the flood insurance through a government program called FEMA.
Mortgage protection insurance in the US is referred to as PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) is required by the mortgage company if the borrower is has less than a 20% down payment for the home. At least this has been the history of PMI, but I talked to my mortgage company a couple of years ago and they aren’t even interested in new mortgages unless the borrower is putting down 20%. This is insurance to protect the borrower not the owner.
It really depends on where you live and the risk of damage to the home. In the New York City metro area there is an extremely low risk of earthquake. But that’s not the case in California. I’ve seen our rates increase over the years but by a very small amount.
And liability.
I agree that it’s silly to ask if it’s “expensive” because you cannot compare coverage on a 1200 square foot home in Nebraska worth $175,000 against a 3000 square foot home on Martha’s Vineyard worth $2.5M.
My homeowners insurance is .0034 of the home’s current market value. My lake house is .0048 because it’s not occupied during the week.
Yes, you can, because it has nothing to do with market value. It has to do with the cost of rebuilding the home, not what the entire building and land is worth, just to replace the building. Asking if it is expensive isn’t silly, it is relative to what you consider to be a cost that is a concern which this thread has already provided.
My home insurance has been reliably ticking up by $100/year – it was $700/year when I started with this company, and it’s now close to $2K/year. I only have done one comparison which didn’t save me much, but this thread is making me think I should do some shopping around. Of course, I am somewhat close to Boston which means that everything is more expensive than it would be elsewhere. But I suspect that the insurance company is relying on me being lazy, which is actually a pretty good bet. (Also, the last time I switched insurance, the mortgage company screwed up the premium payments which meant that I was unknowingly without insurance for several weeks. I was not pleased.)