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Home insurance costs an average of $2,417.10 per year. This article explains how premiums are calculated so you can get the best price when shopping around.
According to data we obtained from Quadrant Information Services, the national average cost of homeowners insurance coverage is $2,417.10 per year. However, due to a variety of local risk factors, the average in your state could be very different.
Whether affected by an elevated crime rate, high risk for extreme weather events or an unusually cheap cost of living, state averages range from $761.85 to $5,839.47 in annual premiums. Interact with the map below to find out what the typical resident of your state pays for home insurance.
Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Delaware | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming
In addition to location, the provider and coverage limits you select can greatly impact your homeowners insurance rates. Your dwelling coverage determines the amount your provider will pay to repair your property after a covered loss. Many providers require you to insure your property for 80% to 100% of its replacement cost. Below are some of our highest-ranking home insurance companies and their national average premiums for various dwelling amounts.
*All sample quotes in this article are based on $350k dwelling for a single male homeowner.
Your state, city — even your neighborhood — can affect the cost of your home insurance premium. But location is just one of many factors that roll into your overall perceived risk. Here, we look at other important variables that insurers consider when determining your rates.
When you file a claim for a covered loss, your insurance company could pay for most or all of the damages. However, filing that claim will likely increase your rates at renewal. Even if you switch companies, most insurers look at your past five to seven years of your claims history with previous providers and charge higher rates if you filed a claim within that time frame. Here’s how much you can expect to pay if you’ve recently filed one of three common claim types:
Like your past claims, your creditworthiness affects your home insurance premiums. In most states, insurance companies can check what’s called a credit-based insurance score, which references portions of the credit score that lenders calculate to help insurance providers calculate your relative risk for filing claims. Though most states have regulations in place to prevent this from being the sole or major reason for policy denial, it is a contributing factor to determining your policy’s premium.
If you’re having trouble insuring your home, it’s probably considered high-risk by most insurance companies. Providers consider a variety of factors about the home and homeowner to determine overall risk level. If you identify with one or more of the following factors, you may have a high-risk home.
Due to the accumulated years of wear and tear on an older home’s structure, foundation, plumbing, electrical and other major systems, it is more likely to have issues that newer homes don’t. When it comes to making repairs, it can be complicated and expensive to bring outdated structures and systems up to modern building codes. Insurance companies equate older homes with an increased risk of filing a claim and raise your premiums accordingly.
The age of your roof is particularly important, as well. A home’s roof is its first line of defense against some weather events, so you’ll get lower home insurance premiums for a new roof than an old one.
All home insurance policies have a deductible, which is the portion of covered losses that the policyholder is responsible for paying before policy benefits kick in. Choosing a higher deductible removes risk from your insurer and reduces your premiums but increases your out-of-pocket costs if damages occur. A lower deductible increases your monthly costs but minimizes your financial risk during a loss.
While you have little control over some factors, such as your home’s location or age, there are other ways to save money on your home insurance premiums.
“By focusing on areas such as deductible amounts and liability limits while keeping a detailed inventory list, these changes can provide substantial savings each year while still protecting yourself against potential financial losses because of unforeseen events beyond one’s control,” said John Espenschied, owner of Insurance Brokers Group.
Florida is impacted by more hurricanes than any other U.S. state. Because of this high propensity for property damage caused by natural disasters, insurers are either increasing rates or shutting down business in Florida. According to a February 2023 article by WFLA, home insurance rates have increased by 50% in the last four years. Additionally, for the past decade, national carriers like Allstate, Nationwide or State Farm broker through another resource when writing coverage in Florida, according to Espenschied.
One reason you could be seeing higher premiums even if you haven’t filed a claim is because “U.S. auto and homeowners insurance premium rates lagged behind the inflation rate in 2020 and 2021,” according to the Insurance Information Institute. Rising costs for building materials and labor increase the price to replace or repair your property and therefore your insurance premiums.
According to cost data provided by Quadrant, the most expensive states for home insurance are:
We at the Guides Home Team gathered home insurance quotes for the providers in this article using data from Quadrant Information Services. Quadrant is a leading source of property and casualty insurance solutions and data.
Our sample homeowner is a 40-year-old single male with good credit and no prior claims history. Our sample policies featured a $1,000 deductible and the following coverage and limits:
For each provider, we gathered a quote for 50% of the ZIP codes in every state it is licensed in. We used the most populous ZIP codes for our study. We took the average of these individual quotes to calculate a national average premium per provider. Our sample rates are for informational purposes only. Actual premiums will vary.
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