The other day I received our newest home insurance bill, and I was very shocked when I opened it.
Our home insurance rate jumped from just $650 last year to $1,100 this year, which is a 69% jump.
Yes, nearly SEVENTY PERCENT from the previous bill we received. There was no note or reasoning attached to the bill (I know they don't do that, but it would be nice), all it stated was the new rate.
I know others pay rates much higher than what we're paying, and I guess we've been lucky.
However, considering the fact that we've never filed a claim since we bought our home 5 years ago and that we live in a cheap home, such a big jump in our annual home insurance bill definitely stood out to me.
So, I did some research.
According to ValuePenguin, the average annual home insurance bill in Missouri is $1,022.
This means our new home insurance bill isn't too off, but considering our home is significantly below the average home value in Missouri (our home is 40% cheaper than the average value of a Missouri home stated by Realtor.com), it is still a little odd to me that we are paying so much more than others in the same area.
Also, when we first bought our home, the average home insurance bill in our zip code (we live in St. Louis) was only $450.
What causes home insurance bills to jump or be higher than average?
Around 1.5 years ago, we had two tornadoes in our subdivision.
One was at the beginning of our subdivision, and the other was at the end of it.
It was a freak occurrence and very scary. I'm assuming this is what caused our home insurance to go up. A few houses have been completely rebuilt and they are still working on one or two other homes.
There are other reasons why home insurance bills may be higher as well:
- Do you have dogs? We have two dogs, but neither of them are on the list of “bad dogs” that home insurance companies don't like. It is sad, but certain breeds will lead to higher home insurance.
- Home “additions.” If you have any additions to your home such as a pool or a trampoline, they will most likely add to your home insurance bill.
- Weather. Weather can be a big reason for why your home insurance is higher than usual. If there is the possibility of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or other disasters, then your home insurance may be higher than the average.
- How old is everything? When was the last time your plumbing, electrical system, roof, and so on were replaced? If nothing has been replaced in a long time, then you may be looking at higher home insurance rates.
How can you lower your home insurance bill?
There are many things you can try to hopefully decrease your home insurance bill.
Not all of them will work, and some even may make your home insurance rate increase. However, testing it out or going over your options with your home insurance agent can help you out.
Below are different ways to possibly lower your home insurance bill:
Bundle (or unbundle) your insurance. For us, bundling our car and home insurance actually resulted in a higher rate, so we decided to separate the two and we shopped for car insurance separately through a completely different company. We now save around $2,000 a year by buying them through two separate companies, so we, of course, could not say no to that! Even though this method didn't work for us, I know many others who bundle and save a ton of money.
Increase your deductible. Our current home insurance deductible is $1,000. We could increase it, but Im not sure how high of a deductible I would feel comfortable with. What's your home insurance deductible at? I plan on going over this with my insurance agent to see how significant the possible savings would be.
Don't file small claims. I know someone who recently filed a claim for an expense that was just over $1,000. And, their deductible was $1,000. They literally only needed to pay a few dollars, yet they still filed a claim. This will increase your home insurance and it really doesn't make any sense to file the claim anyways…
Look for discounts. There are plenty of discounts you should be looking for when it comes to your home insurance. If you have ceiling or wall sprinklers, secure doors, an alarm, cameras, and more, you may be able to score a cheaper home insurance rate.
What I plan on doing.
Today, I plan on calling my home insurance person to see why it jumped so much (it was probably the tornadoes, but I want to make sure it wasn't a mistake or them trying to take advantage of me), and if there's anything I can do to lower it.
Then, I also plan on shopping around. Right now, we currently have State Farm for our home insurance. We used to have our cars insured through State Farm as well, but the price was astronomical even though we had them bundled. I even tried bundling our home insurance with the current company we have our car insurance through, but that price was even HIGHER than what our current situation is.
So, we plan on shopping and possibly switching to a new home insurance company. I plan on checking with Allstate, Farmers Insurance, USAA, Travelers, Nationwide, and more. Who do you have home insurance through?
How much do you pay for home insurance? Has it jumped?
Have any of your other bills seen a crazy jump recently?
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I have State Farm too and our rates also went up. Only about 20% for us, but still very high for our area. I would have passed out at a 70% increase. I also wish they’d include a notice explaining why rates went up. I can’t figure out why ours increased, I bundle my insurance, and have been with them for 15 years. No claims, and no severe weather issues here. Definitely time to shop around.
Yes, I’d shop around if I were you too!
That’s a pretty hefty increase, even with the tornados. We use USAA, but they’ve been hitting us with 20% increases the last few years.
That’s crazy. Do you know when they’ve been doing that?
The first year they didn’t have a reason. They said it was a market adjustment. The next two years it was because of the wildfires in our region.
I never thought that dogs and additions can be a factor in higher home insurance. I really love dogs. However, thank you for providing how we can lower insurance bill. I couldn’t agree more with discounts. What we just have to do is do the “research”, intensive research until we find the right discount.
Thanks Jayson!
Our homeowners insurance is pretty high because we’re in a coastal zipcode, even though we’re in the inland portion we still pay on the same base rates as those on the beach. There’s actually legislation working its way through the FL legislature that might change that and give more granularity, which would, in theory, reduce our rates. *fingers crossed*
Also, high deductibles aren’t a bad thing as long as you keep money set aside for them, which I know you talk about you guys always doing. Our deductibles on our house are $2.5K for normal hazards, with ~$8.5K for hurricanes.
I hope that passes so that you can see lower rates. You should!
And yes, we will probably increase our deductible, as long as it brings a significant difference in the rate. We’ve looked into it before and it was only a few dollars difference each year so it didn’t really make much sense.
Definitely shop around. Home insurance is rife with “add-ons” that will make is complicated to compare offers, but you’ll get the gist after getting a couple of quotes.
Depending on your savings, I’d consider getting a higher deductible. $1,000 is pretty low. Ours is at $5k, which is the highest this particular company allows. Since we have a good amount of savings we’re happy to “self insure” that first $5k.
This is another area where doing the math can really help put things in perspective. For us (in a high cost of living area), the yearly premium difference between a $1k and $5k deductible adds up to almost $1k. So after 4 years of no claims… we’ll be ahead.
It also helps that we do a lot of home repair ourselves, so as minor things happen we take care of them for vastly cheaper than paying a pro.
We will probably increase our deductible, as long as it brings a significant difference in the rate. That’s awesome that you see such a large difference by changing your deductibles. We’ve looked into it before and it was only a few dollars difference each year so it didn’t really make much sense. Hopefully this time it’s a much bigger difference!
Ours is around $850 per year at the moment, but it tends to go up annually. Like you, we have never filed a claim. I did opt for paper billing last year and saved something like 10% on my auto/car/landlord insurance. I also have a big discount for having all of our policies in one place.
Good job Holly! I wish we were able to get a discount on bundling, but we found it cheaper to shop it separately.
Eeek that’s a huge jump! I hope you’re able to figure out why it increased so much and are able to get it lowered or find a better deal elsewhere!
Thanks Charlotte! I’m calling today so I hope they tell me the truth.
Ohhh, that sounds painful! Our area was hit really hard by tornadoes too a few years ago, but we haven’t seen a huge increase yet. Hope you find a solution!
Thanks Deb!
That’s crazy!! We saw a jump like that when we lived in Florida the year after there were 5 hurricanes in the state. We have our home owner’s insurance through USAA and we recently called and got it lowered by about $30 a month. The biggest thing was changing the amounts of coverage we had for the things within our home. We realized that if we replaced everything, we would not go high end; therefore, we did not need to pay for high end coverage.
Good to know! I need to talk to them about this.
Wow – that’s a huge increase! I’ll be interested to hear what your company says, so please share an update. We use MetLife for both home and auto, and haven’t seen any major increases, thankfully.
Thanks! I’ll definitely share what I find out. If I can’t come to a lower price with them, then I’ll add MetLife to my list of places to shop around as well.
We’re with State Farm and paying $2600/year because we had a flooded basement due to a freak rainstorm in 2009 and about $80K in damage. We were just last week shopping around for lower rates and so far only $200 off that figure. I’m going to see about increasing our deductible to $5K and see what a difference it makes.
Let us know what happens! Hopefully you find a great deal.
My condo insurance went up 33% in one year after last years horrific winter and loads of claims. I called them and couldn’t do anything to the price without decreasing the coverage. Maybe at some point it will go down, but I wasn’t very impressed with it.
Have you looked into shopping around with different companies? I plan on doing that if my current company continues to suck.
So sorry to hear about your huge premium increase…I hope you find something more reasonable. Our condo insurance is through Liberty Mutual and we haven’t seen any substantial increases in the time we’ve had them. It still pays to comparison shop when you’re up for renewal, since changes in the way insurance companies structure their rates seem to happen more often these days and you may find some savings. Same for auto insurance.
We looked into Liberty Mutual for our home and they were too expensive. I wish insurance companies just had a list that told us exactly how they decide their pricing! LOL Wouldn’t that be nice?
Good point on checking the difference between bundling and unbundling. I think people assume that bundles automatically create a better value, but as you’ve shown, it’s not always the case.
Yup! It’s not always cheaper. Some don’t even believe me that unbundling might save you money!
I remember those tornadoes, or at least that storm cell. We live in St.C and had 1 (maybe 2) hit right near our old house. We were actually moving that weekend and owned 2 houses at the time so that was scary. Luckily we had no damage other than fallen branches. Trying to get from one house to the other (only a mile apart) took us 1/2 an hour with all the trees and power lines down.
Our homeowners insurance at our old house was about $1000/yr, so right about the MO average. We had been paying that rate since around ’08 when we moved in.
We used a lot of the strategies you mention above… biggest is bundling. USAA offers significant discounts when bundling and we have a lot of services through them (banking, mortgage and car insurance). Next is the deductible… which is was about 2% of the home value (highest you can go).
I’d definitely check out USAA, but shopping around is a great idea.
Yes, you must live right next to me. We were stuck outside at the first tornado and our house was one mile down at the other end near the second tornado. We were stuck as well because of all the downed trees and power lines and had to sit outside in it. No one opened their doors for us (I’m assuming everyone was in their basement and didn’t hear us), and it was a very scary time.
my home and auto insurance is through Farm Bureau. Yikes! That stinks that it went up so much. My car insurance went up about $3/month, but I haven’t had to renew my home’s policy yet (October). Hoping mine didn’t go up that much!
I hope yours doesn’t!
My deductible is at $2,500. I did that because I figure the only time I’ll file a claim is if my building burns down or if someone robs my place and steals most everything. I only have condo insurance, which is marginally more than renter’s insurance and cost me $150 this year. It usually goes up a bit every year since I have replacement cost insurance and the replacement cost value of my belongings goes up!
I know getting married lowers your car insurance rates – have you guys told your insurance agent that you got married this year? That could change things a bit!
Yes, that is something we forgot about! I’ll have to tell them about our marriage today.
Oh, l hate insurance companies with a passion!!!! Ours went from 1800 to 2995! Of course l am screwed as we have less ties to the U.S. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them…and l hate them!!!! 🙂 Mafia!!!!
Wow that is a crazy increase! Can you shop around?
Worst part is that that premium now exceeds the premium of our primary house, which cost double the amount to purchase !!! No reason stated by Allstate. Might be because our U.S ties are thinner…
Yikes! When it comes to home/renter’s insurance and car insurance, my loyalty extends as far as the cheapest available option. Hopefully you can find a better deal!
Thanks! I hope I can find a better deal 🙂
Wow, that’s a huge increase! We are with State Farm too and now I’m dreading to receive “the letter”…
Good luck! Hopefully your news is better than mine.
Definitely shop around. If your house is less than 10 yrs old, definitely check out USAA. They often include stuff in their policies that cost extra from other insurers. That being said, if you’ve an older home, they are a PITA to deal with to get your home insured, so we went with Amica (also highly rated). With Amica, largish house in urban city is roughly your old rate (though we also tack on earthquake coverage which brings it up to roughly your new rate). Chubb is another I’ve heard good things about.
Check your deductible amounts. You want homeowners to be for big items. Figure out what you can cover out of pocket (or emergency fund) even if it stings a bit and adjust your deductibles accordingly.
I’ll have to look into all of this. Our home is about 45 years old though, so I’m sure that is raising our rates a little.
Oh wow, that’s a crazy jump! It stinks to have your premiums raised because of things out of your control, like freak occurrences with the weather. I hope you’re able to find a better deal!
Yup, it’s crazy! I hope I can find something better.
Wow that’s a huge increase. Eric pays the house insurance bill, so truth be told I can’t even remember how much we pay. Now that I’m thinking about it I actually want to check and make sure our bill hasn’t gone up. I suspect it hasn’t or Eric would have said something, but he also may have just paid it without looking at what we paid last year. Thanks for the reminder and I hope you’re able to find a company that can give you a better price!
Thanks! I hope we can find something better.
I’ve been with State Farm for so long, plus I have both car and home insurance with them, that it is still cheaper than other companies. Every so often I’ll shop around, but with all the discounts I get I haven’t found anything cheaper. Texas is the worst for homeowners insurance. We have a state insurance commission that the companies have to submit their rate increase requests to, but it’s pretty much a rubber stamp process. Our weather is the main factor in increasing the rates – tornadoes, hail, and the folks on the coast have to deal with hurricanes.
I would suggest going in and having a long talk with your agent. Ask about all the discounts available on both home and auto, whether certain coverages can be changed due to age of car/home, and definitely ask about the differences in deductibles. Go over both policies with a fine tooth comb, there may be ways to save without shooting yourself in the foot, so to speak.
I haven’t been with State Farm for super long, but still a decent amount of time (9 years). I did make a call to them today, and they said they are “going over the options” and that they will call me back. I plan on going through all of this with them ASAP just like I did on the phone today, but I don’t want them to forget anything 🙂
Ours did that a few years ago and the company said it was a statewide thing, which made no sense. I know some people live in the forest and are more likely to have fires, but we live in a subdivision no where near a forest likely to burn. We switched companies and bundled it with our auto insurance and it was much cheaper. If only we could stop getting speeding tickets so we could lower the car insurance.
I really wish bundling would make it cheaper for us. Geico offered us a great rate that saved us over $2,000 a year by separating our policies, so we just couldn’t say no. Even if we bundled our home and car insurance policies, it wouldn’t even be possible to drop to where we are right now if we stayed with State Farm. You think they would want to keep their long-term customers who have never filed a claim!
I would encourage you to look up a Trusted Agent in your are who can shop many different companies at once and give you a comparison. When you are with a carrier like State Farm, Allstate or any exclusive agency they can only shop with one carrier. Also in most states the carrier has to legally notify you if there is that much of a RATE increase, however make sure it is rate and not coverage increase. Also keep in mind that your insurance coverage amount should be based on replacement cost not value of your home, sometimes those two numbers can be very far apart.
Thanks Audrey! I’ll look into all of these.
That is crazy, Michelle!!! I’m curious to hear what you find out about this. When we moved from our 3600 sq ft home to our 1700 sq ft home our insurance company wanted to charge us, like $2600 a year for insurance because our barn had a loft. We checked around and found another company who said “Who cares?” about the loft, and we’re now with them (Hartford) for $1600 a year and are very happy.
Awesome! I’ll have to look into them as well.
I’ve been helping my parents lower their home insurance rates as well. They’ve owned the house for 20 years and have never filed a claim but since Hurricane Sandy the rates went up. I didn’t realize how complicated it was with all the add ons and different insurances. Then I read someplace that whenever it’s a state of emergency our tax dollars are used to help rebuild the affected areas. So it made me wonder how billions of tax dollars are infused to help yet premiums go up and the winners are the insurance companies.
Yeah, I don’t get how everything works. What’s the point of paying insurance if they just jack up the prices all the time?
In our area, State Farm and American Family are 2 of the most expensive. Find a good reputable insurance agent that can shop multiple insurance providers. We have been with Cincinnati Insurance for a number of years. It does pay to keep looking.
Put your deductibles up to a point where you avoid a catastrophic failure. It really depends on how your finances are. Is your emergency fund filled up? Our home is $7,500 and cars are $2,500.
We won’t claim anything under those amounts. As 1 claim can shoot your rates way up.
Good luck!
The reason why we were with State Farm in the beginning was because they were about 40% cheaper than all the other companies when we first bought our home. I’ve been shopping around and sadly they still seem like they are the cheapest. Other companies want over $2,000 a year now! That is just insane, especially for our cheap and small our home is.
It’s rediculous that your insurance went up that much. Personally I think three should be a cap on how much it can increase each year.
I agree!
I didn’t read through all of the previous comments, so I apologize if this is redundant…
As an insurance agent, here are my thoughts on your post:
1. Generally having certain dogs won’t make your homeowner’s insurance go UP, but you may have to pay for animal liability coverage for having ANY dogs. If you have a “bad” dog, you may become ineligible for certain carriers that may have lower rates.
2. You also aren’t generally charged for having a trampoline or a pool. Usually insurance companies either won’t cover you with a trampoline or they just won’t cover the liability associated with it. Pools must follow guidelines, but don’t usually have a higher liability premium – but you may have to purchase extra property coverage to make sure you’re sufficiently covered.
3. A lot of people misunderstand the “value” of your home. It doesn’t matter what the home would sell for or what the other home values in the neighborhood are. What insurance companies look at is the replacement cost. If your home was built in 1950 and your neighbor’s home was built last year, if they’re built the same way and they’re the same size, they’ll cost the same to replace, even though your home may sell for $100,000 less than your neighbors because of the age.
4. It probably wasn’t the tornadoes in your area that affected your policy as much as you think. Insurance companies buy insurance from reinsurers. There used to be a ton of reinsurers in the world, but now there are about 7. As we have catastrophes throughout the world, those reinsurers take a hit, so they’ll spread those costs out to the insurance companies, who of course, spread it to the consumer.
You have good suggestions though for lowering your premiums. I would also suggest checking with an independent agency when you’re shopping. An agency like ours may represent 10-15 different carriers and they can shop you around to give you the best price/value.
:-))
Thanks! I’m sure readers will find your answers beneficial. I already knew most of this, but I know others do not and having input from an agent is, of course, very nice to have on a blog post like this!
I did talk to my agent, and they said my insurance went up purely because of the tornadoes in my neighborhood and all of the homes that were destroyed and how everyone took advantage of the storm and replaced their roof (we were one of the only ones who did not replace our roof).
We also did work with an independent agency before, and they said our numbers can’t be beat, so I never looked again after that happened just a few years ago. We used the same person for years but he flat out told us that the rates I personally found were as low as it would ever get. I’m thinking our only option right now is to increase our deductible and look at our coverage amounts.
You would hate me if I told you how much I pay in home insurance. Tehe.
Don’t tell me! 🙂
What a shock to see that 69% increase! And how frustrating that the cause is something totally beyond your control: the weather. I feel guilty as I read this post. I know from many articles and even conversations that it’s wise to shop around for better insurance. Somehow though, it is just about the last thing I want to spend time doing – and I never have.
I’ve shopped around the home insurance this past week, and nothing is really cheaper than what I currently have, sadly 🙁
Ours went up quite a bit two years ago, I think about $20/month. When i called it was because the area we live in has been dealing with an increase in flooding and everyone in the area was getting nailed with increase. I explained that flooding is far from an issue on our property since we’re on top of a high hill (the street behind us gets the overflow from our homes thus the flooding)…nothing we could do 🙁
Ugh reasons like that are stupid!
My Homeowners insurance jumped up from $19XX to $22XX this year. I recently finished a review with my agent and he said the reason was all of the Fires and Hail damage of the past three years caused Colorado to move up in the State catastrophe rating. My policy was written many years ago and the insurance companies are always rewriting things. After looking it all over I was able to switch to a newer based policy with the same company (Farmers), get better coverage and for $5XX less a year. I think because we don’t call in and ask they just happily leave us in older policies that charge more as long as we are willing to pay for it.
Yeah, you are definitely right. I called them yesterday and they said they would call me back and I still haven’t heard anything. I need to call back tomorrow!
Dang! I really hope our insurance rates don’t go up, especially since we already pay about $1600 for home insurance. We also pay $2000 for two older, used, economy cars. It’s crazy how much we pay for insurance.
Wow it definitely seems like you pay a lot in insurance! Have you shopped around?
Ugh…yes we do. We shopped around last year. Actually we switch from State Farm to Safeco because their rated were cheaper.
I’ll have to look into Safeco. Thanks!
WOW! 70% increase O_o
I really hate insurance. I carry it, but I hate it. I spend so much money on something we don’t use, gambling on the microscopic chance of something happening. I’ve been driving 30 years, and haven’t had a claim, AFAIK. Renter’s/homeowner’s, vision, medical, dental, life, commercial liability, all this stuff we pay for and never use, but the rates continue to creep up.
All I know is that insurance companies can afford really nice “houses”, those palatial extravagances known as “home offices”.
Hope you can find a better deal on your insurance.
Thanks Andrew! I hope I can find something better.
What a shock to envision that sixty nine increase! and the way frustrating that the cause are a few things altogether on the far side your control: the weather. I feel guilty as I scan this post. i do know from several articles and even conversations that it’s informed go searching for higher insurance.
Yes, it was not good to see that increase!
Interesting fact about certain breeds of dogs requiring higher home insurance.Every day I learn so much from my visits to your blog.