Homeowners insurance cost by ZIP code: what policyholders actually paid

Why the averages you read elsewhere disagree

Search for the average cost of homeowners insurance and the first page gives several national numbers that do not match. They differ because most of them are not averages of what people pay. They are prices that a rating vendor generated for one invented household: a house of a given age, a dwelling limit of $250,000, $300,000 or $400,000, a deductible of $1,000, good credit, no claims. Move the dwelling limit and the national number moves with it, which is why two respectable sites can publish figures a thousand dollars apart in the same month. Those pages usually end on a quote button that asks for your address and phone number.

The Treasury file answers a different question: what did the homeowners of this ZIP code pay, on average, for the policies they actually held? It was built from the Property and Casualty Market Intelligence data call that state regulators and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners ran in 2024. Insurers reported written premiums, policies in force, nonrenewals, cancellations and paid claims for every ZIP code they insured, year by year from 2018 to 2022. The Federal Insurance Office published the metrics for the 25,593 ZIP codes where at least 10 insurers and 50 policies reported, which is the table this site reads (Treasury workbook).

What "premium per policy" measures, and what it does not

Premium per policy is the premium insurers wrote in a ZIP code during the year divided by the policies they had in force at the end of it. It is a real average of real policies, with all their differences: large houses and small ones, new roofs and old ones, a $500 deductible here and a 5% hurricane deductible there. A ZIP code full of expensive waterfront homes shows a high premium partly because each home costs more to rebuild, not only because the risk is higher. That is why the lookup shows the claim figures next to the premium: a high premium with a low claim frequency points to costly homes; a high premium with frequent claims points to risk.

The Treasury report says that all of its dollar figures were adjusted for inflation with the Consumer Price Index (report, Section II). The workbook does not print a base year, and the way its figures move matches the report's inflation-adjusted series, so this site treats them as inflation-adjusted dollars and treats the 2018 to 2022 change as a change beyond inflation. Over the same years, consumer prices rose 16.5%.

From 2022 to today

No public file gives ZIP code premiums after 2022. What does exist is the Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price index for homeowner's insurance, which follows the price insurers charge for the same coverage over time. It rose 6.9% from 2018 to 2022, and then 33.2% from the 2022 average to September 2026. The lookup multiplies the 2022 premium of an area by that second figure to give a rough idea of the same premium at today's prices. It is a national index: a ZIP code that lost insurers or suffered large losses after 2022 may have moved much more, and a quiet one less.

Where premiums were highest and where they rose

Ranked by the median ZIP code of 2022, Florida comes first at $3,211, then Colorado and Oklahoma. At the other end, Pennsylvania had the lowest median, $1,015. The spread inside a state is often wider than the gap between states: in Florida, a tenth of ZIP codes paid under $2,030 while another tenth paid over $10,024.

The fastest rise beyond inflation, at the median ZIP code, came in California (+21.2%), Colorado (+20.9%) and South Dakota (+20.7%). Florida went the other way, -12.5%, which says less about cheaper insurance than about who was left in the private market: Citizens, the state's insurer of last resort, is outside the file, and its policy count grew fast over these years according to the report's appendix. Each state page gives the year-by-year path, the counties and the dearest and cheapest ZIP codes.

Nonrenewals: the number quote sites do not show

A nonrenewal is the insurer's decision not to offer a new term when the policy ends. It is different from a cancellation during the term, and from a homeowner who leaves for a cheaper offer. In the median ZIP code, 0.85% of policies were not renewed in 2022. That looks small until it is added up over a decade of renewals, and it is far from even: one ZIP code in ten had a rate of 2.15% or more. By state, the highest medians in 2022 were in Nebraska (2.30%), South Carolina and North Carolina. Texas insurers did not report nonrenewals in the data call, so Texas shows "not reported" rather than a rate.

The nonrenewal guide turns a yearly rate into the chance of being dropped at least once over the years you plan to keep the house, and lists what a nonrenewal notice must say in a state that writes it into law.

Claims: how often and how much

Across the median ZIP code, insurers paid 4.5 claims per 100 policies a year from 2018 to 2022, and the average paid claim was $15,105. The paid loss ratio, claims paid divided by premiums written, was 43% at the median ZIP code over the five years. A loss ratio well above that, year after year, is what insurers point to when they file for rate increases or stop writing new policies in an area; a single bad year, after a hurricane or a hailstorm, shows up as a spike in the state tables.

The claim figures are also useful for a homeowner who wonders whether to file a small claim. When the damage is close to the deductible, the payout can be smaller than the extra premium a surcharge would add over a few renewals. The claim calculator puts both sides in the same currency.

Deductibles, the rebuild figure and the policy itself

Two homes with the same premium can be insured very differently. In coastal states a separate hurricane or named-storm deductible is often a percentage of the dwelling limit: on a $350,000 dwelling limit, 2% is $7,000 and 5% is $17,500. Florida law requires insurers to offer $500, 2%, 5% and 10% options (Fla. Stat. 627.701). The hurricane deductible calculator shows what a storm claim pays under each.

The dwelling limit itself matters as much. A limit set below the cost to rebuild the house can reduce a partial claim, not only a total loss, because many homeowners forms pay full replacement cost only when the limit reaches a set share of that cost, commonly 80%. The dwelling coverage page works through the arithmetic, and the roof claim page shows what an actual cash value roof clause takes out of a wind or hail claim.

When the private market says no

Many states run a plan for the homeowner no admitted insurer will cover: 33 states and the District of Columbia had a residual market plan listed in the Treasury report's appendix: FAIR plans, beach and windstorm plans, and the Citizens corporations of Florida and Louisiana. Most write narrower policies than a standard homeowners form, often fire, lightning, wind and hail on a dwelling form, so a homeowner who lands there may need a second policy for the rest. The FAIR plan guide lists each plan the report names and explains the Florida rule that decides when a private offer must be taken instead of Citizens.

Renters

The Treasury file covers owners' HO-3 and HO-5 policies only; no public file gives renters insurance premiums by area. What the BLS does publish is a consumer price index for tenants' and household insurance, which rose 16.3% from its 2022 average to September 2026, after five flat years. The renters pages here are calculators of coverage rather than price: the inventory calculator for the personal property limit, and the loss of use calculator for the months a renter cannot live at home.

How to use these figures with a real quote

Start from your declarations page: premium, dwelling limit, deductibles, and whether the roof is settled at replacement cost or actual cash value. Enter the premium in the lookup above: the comparison with your ZIP code at today's prices tells you whether your bill is ordinary for the area or an outlier worth questioning. Then read the area's nonrenewal rate and claim frequency before deciding how much to shop: in a ZIP code where insurers are pulling back, the cheapest quote may come from a company that will not renew next year. Prices for your own house come only from an insurer or a licensed agent; this site sells nothing and asks for nothing. For flood, which no homeowners policy in the file covers, the federal program is described on fema.gov.