Homeowners Insurance Increase (Again)...

Koolau said:
Right. It's not climate change that insurance is reacting to - it's political entities (like states) that they are reacting to IMHO.
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I thought red states were against strict regulation of business — interesting that they also seem to have the highest concentration of insurance pain.

I apologize for saying it, but you guys are a funny bunch when I read your postings on this subject.
 
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Just got our renewal, up about 10% this year.
 
JoeWras said:
Oh yeah, insurance fraud is big. Even soft fraud like bogus hail claims to get a "free roof."

I personally was involved in repairs after one of these storm chaser fraudsters. Our state was paying for repairs by fly-by-night companies to help people in flood ravaged areas near the coast. In this case, the state was hosed, but it can also be insurance companies getting the same kind of shoddy work.

Here's what happened. State was paying enough to "dry out" a portion of the house. The idea was people could stay in their home while gathering means to fix the whole house. The state granted these companies $10k or so to fix the kitchen, bathroom and a small room to sleep. They would also provide a small fridge and microwave.

Enter the disaster recovery agency I volunteered with. We would have to come behind these guys to fix their shoddy work. The contractors' idea of "drying in/out" a portion of the house was to just nail up drywall over the wet drywall, slap on some paint, rip out the carpet, and be on their way. Shoddy contractors could do this in 2 days, probably costing them $2k or $3k. They pocket the rest. People soon noticed they had mold concerns, sometimes the mold coming back right through the walls. We had to go in, rip out all the drywall, do a proper mediation, which is not hard, just time consuming. Dry it, re-insulate, and put up proper drywall and a decent floor. If the drywall wasn't just covered over while damp, the initial job would have been simpler. The right way was to rip out the bottom 2 ft., then dry out and remediate. Then patch. This is what the contractors were supposed to do, but it takes a week or so. Since it got covered over, the mold festered and caused more problems, resulting in a complete tear down to the studs.

I understand my state learned a lot of lessons and does this program differently now. My gut feel is that insurance companies use Servpro or other big remediation companies because they are diligent. But man are they expensive. I guess you can say the shoddy fraudsters have pushed insurance/state/flood program to use the big expensive companies, and will pay the price they ask. Fraud by others escalates the price of the remaining good companies.
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Great Post.
 
Pointby2 said:
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Where we live in SoCal. I'm just happy to still have homeowners insurance. It has quadrupled over the last 20 years. A lot of our neighbors have lost theirs. We love living on the edge of the Canyon/Park but insurance companies don't like it.
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We live basically on the boundry of a national monument which has little to no fire management. My yard is all hardscape, metal roof, no wood siding. Some of that helps me, some of that hurts me.
 
Onda said:
I thought red states were against strict regulation of business — interesting that they also seem to have the highest concentration of insurance pain.

I apologize for saying it, but you guys are a funny bunch when I read your postings on this subject.
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I think it's fair to say that one side prefers or favors regulation over the other side.

Assuming what you allege is accurate, that red states have a higher concentration of insurance pain is true, are you now suggesting that regulation is the cause and not climate change? If so, how do you explain California?
 
Kings over Queens said:
I think it's fair to say that one side prefers or favors regulation over the other side.

Assuming what you allege is accurate, that red states have a higher concentration of insurance pain is true, are you now suggesting that regulation is the cause and not climate change? If so, how do you explain California?
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Climate Change (not regulations).
 
Kings over Queens said:
Still clinging to climate change but unable to document it. Got it.

Obviously I disagree with you, but let me ask you this. How do you explain the increases to personal excess (umbrella) liability policies that have recently been posted about here?
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I think it is best to simply agree that we disagree.
 
A tree came through the roof of my son's home and I'm already worrying that the amount of insurance will not be enough to cover the costs since there may be structural damage too. Made me think about upping my coverage, though it's for substantially more than the assessed value. But so is DS's insurance. We'll see. I don't have any trees close, am not in an area prone to fires, and am high enough I won't get flooded. My smoke detectors are all working... and I do have an umbrella policy.
 
Kings over Queens said:
No thoughts on what is causing increases on personal excess (umbrella) liability coverage?
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Go and do research on how much an umbrella policy costs in Massachusetts and how much it costs in Florida. Then check homeowner insurance rates and compare the difference — and see whether umbrella coverage in Florida is also 500% more expensive. I doubt it.

My guess is that umbrella policies have risen more (Probably with some concetration in states with harsher liability environments) uniformly across the U.S., while homeowner insurance increases are concentrated in states affected by climate change.

Insurance companies are businesses that calculate risk and set rates based on that risk.
 
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Onda said:
Go and do research on how much an umbrella policy costs in Massachusetts and how much it costs in Florida. Then check homeowner insurance rates and compare the difference — and see whether umbrella coverage in Florida is also 500% more expensive. I doubt it.

My guess is that umbrella policies have risen more (Probably with some concetration in states with harsher liability environments) uniformly across the U.S., while homeowner insurance increases are concentrated in states affected by climate change.

Insurance companies are businesses that calculate risk and set rates based on that risk.
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Thank you. That was the response I hoped you make.

We will agree to disagree on the climate change part.
 
Sorcerer said:
Drop insurance and self insure.
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As crazy as this option sounds, I am guessing more people are being forced into this option due to year over year 15%-30% increases for both auto and home. You can get a $1,500 deductible on your auto comprehensive coverage with some insurance companies so a glass claim is basically self insuring in that case. More and more self-insure claims could be coming as people can’t afford these increases forever.
 
oscar1 said:
Oh boy, This topic hits home each year. Decided to try an AI approach this year. I'm in the process so I will update you but here is where I am at:

Step 1 - Used ChatGPT to ask for a "structured approach to comparing my auto & homeowners policies with 2025-26 pricing trends and considering deductibles, dwelling, personal property and liability". That resulted in good information on premium trends, good suggestions on what is currently going on with specific coverages, etc, etc. But at the end of this prompt, it said "If you like, I can walk through your **actual renewal numbers** and compare them line-by-line to see where you're overpaying or undercovered". Just list your vehicle make, model, coverages, deductible amounts, and any extras like rental, roadside, last several years of claim history, and same for your homeowners." So I said YES!

Step 2 - I provided my current vehicles coverage, safe driver, and homeowners (hail claim in 2022), etc. but also added "retired couple, drive 5,000 miles per year, both drivers clean driving record". ChatGPT replied "Thanks - that's a solid, clean dataset"! And proceeded to go line-by-line to explain where I was overpaying, undercovered, and what should change if anything. The detail (about 2 pages) made recommendations on dwelling being under insured based on me telling them home value of $475k ($125k land). Either up that to $400k or add extended replacement cost (20-25%). ChatGPT went on and on and explained why for each line-item and even summarized the suggested changes and impact on my annual rates. At the end of this exchange, ChatGPT says: "If you want, I can simulate a **best possible optimized policy** for you." So I said YES.

Step 3 - So then ChapGPT generates the new recommended coverage value, why it recommended the new value and at least 1 alternative to consider. Some things were Keep it where you have it. Others were reduce here (like the poster above that said personal property protection can usually be reduced to save $100-200 per year) for each coverage line item. And then ChatGPT created a before / after snapshot table of my coverages before and after (recommended) and explained why "reduces financial risk" or "aligns with current trends" or "reallocates to high-impact coverage". Then, ChatGPT says; "If you want, I can draft a **ready-to-send message to your insurance agent** that asks exactly for these changes to get clean, compariable quotes without confusion." To which I said "Hell YES". lol

Step 4 - So I send a couple of these out to 2 agencies just to see if the whole process would work. Both replied within a day. One said "fill out our form" which sucked because I gave a bunch of personal information before I realized that was just a scam so I stopped half way through. The other firm called and she ran the new coverages but the rates came back way more than even my 17% increase AARP The Hartford want me to renew at for 2026-27. So, I'm still playing the game. Hopefully will report back in the next month what came of it. I'm still very impressed with the AI approach, quality of the responses, and ChatGPT keeping my original conversation with memory and expanding on that with each response. AI is coming a long way although I have not figured out how to save off an entire conversation. I had to cut & paste each response to draft e-mail for future reference & printing.

Hope you all enjoyed my response as long as it was!!
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Update: Above did not work! Lol I learned a lot but normalizing my coverages (increased dwelling, reduced prop damage, increased uninsured motorists, etc. based on ChatGPT) made me feel like I was more secure after years of chipping away at at those coverages, but that made my current auto / home renew at 30% increase vs. 17%. Arghh!

Liberty Mutual, Geico, and AARP The Hartford all came back 30% or higher for exact same coverages. Even with 20% bundling discount. Something very fishy is going on with insurance companies in America!
 
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My Homeowners Insurance is up 15% (total) over the past 3 years - so about 5% per year on average. Over the past 15 years, it's averaged 5.3% per year increase.
 
When we moved to a heavily forested area of Colorado in the ‘80s, fire danger was simply not a thing. There had been one fire in the area, in 1969, and it was “huge”, a whole 120 acres. That was one of the larger fires in CO in the previous 50 years.

Now, a 120 acre fire barely makes the news, the fire danger has spread to the suburbs, and is much higher on the eastern plains.

We left that area several years ago, but are still on a local social media group. There is ONE insurer left writing new homeowners policies, and the insurers send inspectors out every few years to existing insured properties, and present an often expensive list of demands that must be met for coverage to continue. For some houses, this has included completely replacing siding and/or decks. It has gotten to the point where they basically require a clearcut 30-50 foot wide space around every house. The house we used to live in, for example, would have required removal of at least 15 very large trees to achieve a 50 foot buffer. That would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

For those of you who don’t believe in the impact of climate change, what changed between the 1980s and today?
 
Wasn't Florida supposed to be under water decades ago? Why would anyone in their right mind buy property there, especially near the coast? And, why would any insurance company insure a house that is near the coast? Just a little food for thought.
 
flyoverstate said:
For those of you who don’t believe in the impact of climate change, what changed between the 1980s and today?
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You are provocatively framing this request for a reply to be a no-win for anyone who replies. Let's agree that climate change has an impact, OK?

But it is not the only impact. What we see in my area in the southeast are massive changes in land use. I'm sure it is similar in other regions. For example, suburbs used to be surrounded by farms. Over the last 50 years, farms have become very efficient and have shrunk in size. Some crops have disappeared for various regions, including the government paying for them to not be grown (tobacco).

So farmers are letting the land go, and reforestation naturally restarts. It gets pretty dense close in to the suburbs. This is especially true of farms where the writing is on the wall that they will be absorbed. Farming stops, trees grow, deed sales are prepared. I'm always amazed at all the open land I see in arial photos from 40 years ago, but especially from 80 years ago. There were so few trees before WWII.

On top of that, landowner forest management is different than it used to be. You have to remember, over 90% (some say much higher) of forest land in the USA has been heavily harvested over the last 200 years. Some of it on heavy rotation, extracting the forest products as quickly as they could. And just as farming has become more efficient, so has forestry harvesting. Smaller areas with specific species tree farms is becoming the new normal versus wholesale cutting on a frequent basis.
 
JoeWras said:
You are provocatively framing this request for a reply to be a no-win for anyone who replies. Let's agree that climate change has an impact, OK?

But it is not the only impact. What we see in my area in the southeast are massive changes in land use. I'm sure it is similar in other regions. For example, suburbs used to be surrounded by farms. Over the last 50 years, farms have become very efficient and have shrunk in size. Some crops have disappeared for various regions, including the government paying for them to not be grown (tobacco).

So farmers are letting the land go, and reforestation naturally restarts. It gets pretty dense close in to the suburbs. This is especially true of farms where the writing is on the wall that they will be absorbed. Farming stops, trees grow, deed sales are prepared. I'm always amazed at all the open land I see in arial photos from 40 years ago, but especially from 80 years ago. There were so few trees before WWII.

On top of that, landowner forest management is different than it used to be. You have to remember, over 90% (some say much higher) of forest land in the USA has been heavily harvested over the last 200 years. Some of it on heavy rotation, extracting the forest products as quickly as they could. And just as farming has become more efficient, so has forestry harvesting. Smaller areas with specific species tree farms is becoming the new normal versus wholesale cutting on a frequent basis.
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You are projecting what are obviously East of the Mississippi conditions to the rest of the country. No farmers in Colorado are "letting the land go.", some are selling off their water, but the land ends up being dust and weeds in that case, not a forest.

I am not aware of a single "tree farm" here that is grown for wood harvest.

There is a higher density of trees along the front range, because they are no longer harvested for firewood there, but the real issue is that there are a lot of dead trees from the pine beetle. Why is the pine beetle such a problem now? Because it doesn't get cold enough anymore to kill them off over the winters, so they propagate exponentially.

There have been over 880,000 acres of area burned in Nebraska just this year, and it is only April. Trees, brush, and grass. The grass would normally be greening up and the dirt would be soft and squishy, but there was almost no snow this winter, and temperatures were insanely warm. There have been no "land use" changes in NW Nebraska! 2026 Nebraska Wildfires

There are been a long enough moisture deficit in the SW USA now that scientists are not even calling it a "drought" any more, they are calling it "aridification", meaning some areas that for thousands of years have been wet enough to grow crops are now reverting back to desert, and the flows in the rivers are dwindling.

There are temperature and moisture sensors all over the USA, and there is SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that the temperatures are higher and the moisture lower in many areas of the West. And, as SCIENCE PREDICTS, storms are more severe when they do occur, when atmospheric temperatures rise. You can argue all day long about the causes, but unless you are a science denier, you cannot deny that the climate is warming.

Insurance companies know this, because they believe the data. And they believe the scientists who tell them that the result will be stronger storms, more flooding, more fires. They price accordingly.
 
Same thing happened to me last year, big jumps outta nowhere… bundling helps a bit, but shopping around every year is kinda the new normal now.
 
flyoverstate said:
When we moved to a heavily forested area of Colorado in the ‘80s, fire danger was simply not a thing. There had been one fire in the area, in 1969, and it was “huge”, a whole 120 acres. That was one of the larger fires in CO in the previous 50 years.

Now, a 120 acre fire barely makes the news, the fire danger has spread to the suburbs, and is much higher on the eastern plains.

We left that area several years ago, but are still on a local social media group. There is ONE insurer left writing new homeowners policies, and the insurers send inspectors out every few years to existing insured properties, and present an often expensive list of demands that must be met for coverage to continue. For some houses, this has included completely replacing siding and/or decks. It has gotten to the point where they basically require a clearcut 30-50 foot wide space around every house. The house we used to live in, for example, would have required removal of at least 15 very large trees to achieve a 50 foot buffer. That would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

For those of you who don’t believe in the impact of climate change, what changed between the 1980s and today?
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What changed is that insurers stopped pricing folklore and started pricing claims . When forests that rarely burned begin producing repeated megafires, when fire seasons get longer, drier, and hotter, and when a 120-acre fire no longer even registers as unusual, it is difficult to argue that “nothing changed” except the vocabulary used to describe it.

A business that lives by risk models usually notices reality before ideology does.
 
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