Every year I use a broker who shops my homeowners policy. Over 2 years my policy premium has gone up 40% with no claims and switching carriers to get a better rate.

My house is over a lot of underwriters thresholds for value (frankly, isn't that much in this day and age) but here I am only able to get higher end carrier policies. That pool of carriers continues to shrink for Harris County.

Found a new online underwriter called Kin. Anyone heard of or used them?

It lets you fully customize the policy. Where it gets interesting is changing the % for named storm and a separate category which is wind / hail. It is a replacement cost policy but as it relates to the roof it's a depreciated payout. Clearly these insurance companies are tired of paying for roofs.

My roof is 15+ years old so I'm going to have to replace it in the next 2+ years. Should I just jack up the deductibles on wind/named storm and accept the fact I am coming out of pocket on the roof.

Trying to knock this premium down. Maybe I should look at this policy for what it is - covering me for a major loss (everything else is self insured basically).

I've got no answer to your question. But this is why I've chosen to stay loyal to a good insurance company over the past several years. Shopping each year and changing for a lower rate, especially as your roof ages, is risky. My renewals have not yet brought any sticker shock and I've actually received discounts after 5 years of loyalty. I'm with Amica.

2022 $2k normal deductibles.
2023 $3.2k and had to increase deductible
2024 $5k and still crazy $50k deductible

Can't find better.
Have major carriers saying they aren't even writing new policies.

77079 west Houston.

All but a handful of insurance carriers have pulled out of Harris county over the last two years or so. Some cancelled policies outright, but others just doubled their prices to kick out anyone paying attention, and new policies are very difficult to get and very expensive. It's pretty awful.

I own an Independent Agency and can strongly advise you to NOT ever be loyal to an insurance company. You are just a policy number to them and they could care less. If you ever have a claim one thing they don't do is look how long you have been with them or if you have paid on time.

Now, I encourage loyalty to the agent if they treat you well and good at their job, but an Insurance company looks out for themselves 100 out of 100 times.

Also to the OP, you are probably at actual cash value on your roof, so when factoring in that depreciation and your deductible you have very little coverage on your roof anyways. There is still potential for damage to your house in a named storm where that deductible applies, not just your roof.....however if it were me in your shoes I would jack up that ded as high as you can. And then when you replace your roof your premium will go way down and it should open up other carriers who will even offer a quote, makes a HUGE difference right now.

The Silverback said:

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I own an Independent Agency and can strongly advise you to NOT ever be loyal to an insurance company. You are just a policy number to them and they could care less. If you ever have a claim one thing they don't do is look how long you have been with them or if you have paid on time.

Now, I encourage loyalty to the agent if they treat you well and good at their job, but an Insurance company looks out for themselves 100 out of 100 times.

Also to the OP, you are probably at actual cash value on your roof, so when factoring in that depreciation and your deductible you have very little coverage on your roof anyways. There is still potential for damage to your house in a named storm where that deductible applies, not just your roof.....however if it were me in your shoes I would jack up that ded as high as you can. And then when you replace your roof your premium will go way down and it should open up other carriers who will even offer a quote, makes a HUGE difference right now.

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that's always what I was told. Then I replaced the roof, and premium still went up.

now maybe it would have gone up even more, but that was still annoying.

It definitely would have gone down but your overall increase probably was much higher than the roof discount. I have seen some policies double or even triple this year, so even if you save $500 on the roof age the overall increase can easily be more still. Its insane.

But like I mentioned, having a new roof can/should unlock carriers to even offer quotes who otherwise would not due to the age of the roof.

nobody seems to want to quote 1950's homes in Harris County.

crazy market.

Seems there is a market for bare bones insurance that is extremely selective in allowing people join.

No roof replacements
No flood damage
Water damage has to be extensive.

one MEEN Ag said:

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Seems there is a market for bare bones insurance that is extremely selective in allowing people join.

No roof replacements
No flood damage
Water damage has to be extensive.

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that would be very niche, as no homeowner with a mortgage would be able to use it

Saw a stat that 40% of homes in the US don't have mortgages. So its not terribly unqualifying. And again, paying your home off is an indicator that the homeowner has skin in the game and isn't going to work against you here.

I mean, I'd be interested in starting an amish style coop/faith based healthshare insurance where its all just vetted one on one in the beginning.

I never thought I would pay off my mortgages but with how stupid insurance has gotten recently I'm at least doing the math to see if it's worth it.

I had to check that, and did find an article saying 38% of homeowners don't have a mortgage. I too am surprised it's that high.

yeah, that seems crazy high.

I would guess institutional ownership is at least half of that.

The Silverback said:

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I own an Independent Agency and can strongly advise you to NOT ever be loyal to an insurance company. You are just a policy number to them and they could care less. If you ever have a claim one thing they don't do is look how long you have been with them or if you have paid on time.

Now, I encourage loyalty to the agent if they treat you well and good at their job, but an Insurance company looks out for themselves 100 out of 100 times.

Also to the OP, you are probably at actual cash value on your roof, so when factoring in that depreciation and your deductible you have very little coverage on your roof anyways. There is still potential for damage to your house in a named storm where that deductible applies, not just your roof.....however if it were me in your shoes I would jack up that ded as high as you can. And then when you replace your roof your premium will go way down and it should open up other carriers who will even offer a quote, makes a HUGE difference right now.

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I'm not even a policy number to a new insurance company. At least loyalty means I'm not looking for a company to write a "new" policy every year, which is the majority of the problem right now. I get it, some companies are canceling/ non-renewing or jacking up previously " cheapest" premium existing customers for various silly reasons, but many more are just not writing new policies, in my experience.

2024 premium $2878 (loyalty discount applied)
2023 premium $3013

2% wind/hail deductible, 1% otherwise. Unchanged year over year.

Just my experience... Again, I'm with Amica which is a great long standing insurance company.

I'm on with Amica now trying to get a quote. Dropped them in 2019 when they were not competitive when I moved. Fingers crossed.

They calculated my dwelling at half of what my current provider lists, maxed the deductible to 5%, and it was still over a $6k quote!

This is madness

Try Kin Insurance. Found them fully customizable and a competitive rate. It's an online quote system.

Good lord Kim was over $9k

I jacked every deductible up to the max and I'm still over $5k

Strangely had marketing letter from Kin in today's mail…must be a sign

Anyone ask them who adjusts their claims? Their demo tech financial rating is essentially worthless but I like that they disclose some of the reinsurance specs on their website.

I'd potentially be open to this and am generally very reluctant to move to a carrier with out a financial rating from one of the big raters.

Red Pear Realty said:

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I never thought I would pay off my mortgages but with how stupid insurance has gotten recently I'm at least doing the math to see if it's worth it.

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Is this because you're thinking about dropping insurance or you just want to be done cutting checks every month to escrow and just have a really bad month once a year?

I'm considering dropping my homeowners insurance.

Man, as much as I complain about prices, I don't think I could justify going without. I could justify going with way less. The big thing for me is fire. I can pretty well manage flood risk by where I buy my house, and I can pay for my own roof, I also am not too worried about some plumbing fixture bursting as I've updated all the hoses, maintain my equipment and I shut my water off when I leave overnight.

But fire, I'm one stupid lithium ion battery away from losing it all. We had a family friend who lost everything because of a Dell charger. Wasn't even cheap chinese crap, it was expensive chinese crap. Another neighbor got a whole new house because of oily rags combusting in their garage and just the smoke got into the house. And modern homes have so much oil based foams in them if anything goes up, it all goes up.

I'll gladly go super high deductible on wind, water, roof storm events if that means I can get some serviceable coverage against fire. 1" of water would do about 50k in damage to my house. 12" would be about 100k. Anything higher than that would mean God has forsaken his promise to never flood the world again and we've got bigger problems.

But fire? A 'call 911' level of fire would probably cost me truly 350k-650k.

I also couldn't probably find a good enough use for an extra 3-5k to go without homeowners insurance. Like its not deciding if I put food on the table. If I told my wife this cost will make us have to work an extra year in our 60s versus investing that amount each year she'd tell me to not piss the boss off and keep on chugging.

I completely get where you're coming from, and I'm not 100% decided, but I'm at least moved past the stance of "you are crazy to not get insurance" to a place where I'm saying, "maybe its worth running the math on it." Definitely not saying I'm 100% going to drop my policies soon, but at least considering it.

My wife's first cousin died in a house fire in an old home in another state. They are real and do happen. With that said, here's my thinking for me at this time:

• Since I've moved into building homes, my construction cost is very low. If something happened and I had a total loss, it would be very cheap to build again.
• Most of my homes are in areas with high value of land relative to overall value.
• I'm at the point where I have enough homes that my annual insurance costs are not insignificant.
• In 16+ years of being a landlord, I've one claim. Meanwhile, I've paid into the hundreds of thousands in insurance premiums.
• All of my homes are either 1990+ vintage or complete remodels of much older homes, with new wiring, plumbing, etc.
• There are other methods of reducing risk.
• Anecdotally, back in the day, when I bought a home, I'd call up my insurance company (same guy every time), give him the info, he'd quote me, and I'd push back on the insured value and let him know that I couldn't rebuild if my house caught fire (again, my land to building value ratio was very high, and I grew up in deep East Texas where old trailer houses caught fire all the time so I probably thought it was more common than it really was). His responses always kind of gave me the impression he thought I was about to burn them down lol. Finally, one day we went through that exercise and he said "hold on". I could hear him put the phone down, walk over and close his office door, sit back down and pick up the phone again. I'll never forget what he said next. "Listen, I've underwritten thousands of insurance policies in my career, and I've had exactly four fires. And three of those were arson. You don't need to worry about house fires." WOW.

From your perspective, you've got a business portfolio of houses. Insurance is a risk but you don't have personal attachment to any of them except the one you live in. I can see a portfolio growing to the size of pseudo self insurance through your own captively held insurance arm.

I've only got one house and as much as I don't like the hand holding you get out of financial planners, I do pay insurance to hand hold if something goes terribly wrong.

For your insurance story, that is interesting, but I don't know if I could sleep with the risk that someone could just arson my whole portfolio and I'd basically never recover. People are crazy.

i was going to say, i would be worried about liability. definitely need a policy to cover.

Definitely one of the items I would put into place. The other might be an offshore trust.

Other suggestions that might be helpful?

Just got my renewal so pulling some history from my budgets. Absolutely crazy seeing these premiums over time....

Old House:
2010-2021: Essentially around $2,000
2022: $2,200
2023: $3,100
Switch to landlord
2023: $2,050
2024: $3,100

New House:
2023: $3,400
2024: $5,900