Rising homeowners insurance premiums have forced mn of American property owners to rethink household budgets over the past two years.
A new analysis from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners suggests pricing pressure isn’t the only threat. Coverage availability is moving into the same conversation.
NAIC reviewed seven years of homeowners insurance data collected by state regulators. The report covers 2018 through 2024 and uses filings from 715 insurance carriers writing coverage across the US.
Premium increases alone look severe. After inflation, homeowners insurance premiums rose as much as 43% in the West, according to NAIC.
The deeper risk sits in non-renewals. A homeowner might pay every bill on time and still lose coverage when the insurer decides not to extend the policy.
A non-renewal occurs when an insurance company declines to continue a policy after the term ends, regardless of payment history.
Company-initiated non-renewal rates rose across all four NAIC geographic regions during the seven-year period. The increases ranged from 96% to 216%, according to the NAIC report.
The West saw the steepest rise. Non-renewals per 1,000 in-force policies more than tripled during the study period.
NAIC classified these cases as company-initiated non-renewals. That distinction matters, because the carrier made the decision, not the homeowner.
About 103 mn homeowners insurance policies were active across the US in 2024, according to NAIC’s report, Examining Homeowner Property Insurance Market Dynamics. Even a modest percentage shift affects mn of households at that scale.
Climate disasters are changing how insurers judge property risk.
Peter Kochenburger, a visiting professor of law at Southern University Law Center and an NAIC-funded consumer representative, told CNBC that insurers issue non-renewals when they decide the risk of keeping a policy exceeds the profit potential.
Climate-driven severe weather is driving much of that reassessment, he said, because it has increased the frequency and cost of claims.
The number of $1 bn weather disasters rose more than fivefold from 2018 through 2022 compared with the 1980s, after inflation adjustment, according to the Treasury’s January 2025 Federal Insurance Office report based on NOAA data.
A Treasury analysis released through the Federal Insurance Office also examined the connection between climate risk and non-renewal rates by ZIP code.
Consumers in the highest-risk ZIP codes faced non-renewal rates about 80% higher than consumers in the lowest-risk areas, according to FIO’s January 2025 report, Analyses of US Homeowners Insurance Markets, 2018-2022.
Those same high-risk communities paid an average annual premium of $2,321, or 82% more than lower-risk areas, Treasury data showed.
Claims in the highest-risk ZIP codes averaged about $24,000 per incident. In the least exposed communities, average claims stood near $19,000.
The pattern is blunt. Climate disasters are reshaping property insurance as rising claims push insurers to raise premiums and drop policies in areas with heavier catastrophe exposure.
NAIC’s premium data also show sharp regional differences. The analysis used data from 715 companies writing homeowners coverage in 2024, and premium levels varied widely across the country.
