Growing #s Of Texans Experience The Freedom Of Living w/o Property Insurance; Premiums Up 19% 2024, 21% In 2023

[hatrack]

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Yet as bigger, more frequent storms pummel Texas, and inflation makes it more expensive to repair and rebuild homes, spiking property insurance costs are challenging the state’s perception of itself as an antidote to expensive coastal cities. Landlords are raising rents to adjust to the higher costs. Home buyers are struggling to find properties they can afford. And longtime residents are facing higher monthly bills, making it more expensive to live in their homes.

Costs are rising across the state, which experiences almost every natural disaster, including wildfires, hurricanes, hailstorms and tornadoes. According to the Texas Department of Insurance, most homeowners don’t pay as much as Dempsey — the average premium was $2,803 in 2023, the most recent data available. But costs are climbing quickly. Premiums rose by nearly 19 percent last year and about 21 percent in 2023. An analysis by Insurify, an insurance comparison shopping website, looked at policies across the country providing $400,000 in dwelling coverage and a $1,000 deductible. It estimated Texas would be the fifth most expensive state for home insurance by the end of 2025.

“Everybody thinks it’s cheap to live here,” said John Cobarruvias, a retired NASA computer analyst who lives in Clear Lake and has become one of the most outspoken advocates pushing state legislators for regulatory changes. “But we have a serious problem with our insurance,” he said, “It’s not just affecting homeowners. It’s also our schools, our government buildings — and therefore our taxes.”

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After years of losses, insurance companies are limiting coverage, raising rates and pulling out of risky areas. Last year, Progressive Insurance said the company was temporarily restricting new homeowners’ business in certain parts of Texas, citing the need to reduce “the impact from weather-related volatility.” The company made this announcement soon after Hurricane Beryl tore through Houston and not long after Foremost, a subsidiary of Farmers Insurance, said it would not renew certain policies. Texas has two insurers of last resort, and they are both growing. The Texas FAIR Plan covers residents throughout the state who can’t get insurance on the private market, while the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association is designed to provide wind and hail coverage only to residents in coastal counties. A spokesman for the association said its projections show that, by the end of this year, it expects to reach nearly 285,000 policies, more than at any point in its history.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/04/21/home-insurance-texas-costs-rising/

https://wapo.st/443BtBW

[dutch777]

1. Might want to risk ditching the insurance but your mortgage is predicated on you having it. Only the rich....

...will be able to live in some areas soon as they can either afford the insurance or have the free cash to essentially self insure. The notion that somehow changing regulations will help the base construction cost issue driving this is illogical. If any regulatory change is made that lowers costs it probably means the state will just be allowing more insurance exemptions to what is covered and thereby just be passing more risk to the homeowner in the name of lowering rates. On top of all this, much of what Trump is doing with reductions in FEMA, National Weather Service, Corps of Engineers, etc. will shift more burden to state/local agencies that have neither the $$$ nor skill sets to make up for the loss.

[central scrutinizer]

2. Mine went up 50% over 2024

After rising 30% the year before. Probably due to wildfires here in Oregon.

[Midnight Writer]

3. Wait until Trump's tariffs jack up the price of building materials, such as lumber.

Couple that with the disappearance of our low-wage migrant workers.

Add in an increase in disasters because of climate change, which Trump denounces as a hoax, and insurance will become so expensive that it is obsolete.

Insurance is going to continue to go through the roof, for homes, autos, and health.