Why home insurance costs the most in a handful of states

In the NAIC's latest data (policy year 2023, published July 2026), the highest average HO-3 premiums were in Louisiana ($3,027), Texas ($2,864), Florida ($2,779), Colorado ($2,492) and Oklahoma ($2,486), against a national average of $1,737 and a low of $923 in Wisconsin. The gap exists because a premium is mostly a forecast of storm losses. States where hurricanes, hail or wildfire are likeliest, and where claims also tend to be disputed or reinsurance is dear, cost the most to insure.

The ranking, and what it measures

The NAIC does not rank states, so the order below is our own sort of its 2023 averages for the HO-3 form (NAIC report, Data for 2023).

Louisiana's average was a little over three times Wisconsin's, our arithmetic from those two figures. Two cautions apply before you read anything into the order. First, an average premium is not a rate. It reflects the typical dwelling limit, deductible choices and mix of homes in the state, so a state with expensive houses can rank high without being unusually risky per dollar of coverage. Second, the ranking moves. In the prior edition (data year 2022, republished by the Insurance Information Institute), Florida was first at $2,677, Louisiana second at $2,603 and Texas third at $2,397. By our arithmetic, Louisiana rose about 16% and Texas about 19% in a year, while Florida rose about 4%. The data are also old: the lag between a policy year and the NAIC report is about two and a half years, so a quote you receive today is likely above these figures. See how much does homeowners insurance cost? for how to read them.

Driver 1: the chance of a big wind or hail loss

The Government Accountability Office tested what goes with higher premiums. Its report, GAO-26-107867 (February 2026), found that premiums were significantly associated with the risk of wind and wildfire damage and with recent economic damage from natural disasters. Homes in areas with severe or extreme wind risk had premiums about 58% higher, roughly $1,294 a year, than similar homes in areas with major wind risk, the next level down. For wildfire, the same step up was associated with premiums about 8% higher.

That puts the Gulf and Atlantic coasts at the top, and hail country close behind. Aon counted $52.3 billion of 2025 U.S. insured losses from severe convective storms, the hail, tornado and straight-line wind events common in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Nebraska, against $43.0 billion for wildfire, drought and heat waves (Triple-I/Aon, as of January 2026). Hail in particular tends to produce many mid-sized roof claims rather than one headline loss. severe convective storms and rising premiums explains how that reaches deductibles and roof terms as well as the rate.

Wildfire is the missing piece in this table. California is a high-fire-risk state, yet its 2023 HO-3 average was $1,655, below the national figure. A state's average premium also reflects how rates are set, and that leads to the fourth driver below.

Driver 2: what insurers pay to lay off the risk

Insurers buy reinsurance to cap their losses from a hurricane or wildfire season, and its price is built into rates, most heavily where the exposure is concentrated. The Guy Carpenter U.S. property catastrophe rate-on-line index rose 30.1% at the January 2023 renewals, its steepest rise since 2006, according to Reinsurance News. The effect reverses when reinsurance softens. In December 2025 Louisiana's insurance commissioner approved a 7.5% average decrease, effective February 16, 2026, for the SURE and Elevate reciprocal exchanges, and the department said SURE's cut was primarily driven by a reduction in reinsurance costs (reported by Reinsurance News). reinsurance costs and your premium covers the mechanics.

Driver 3: how disputes and insolvencies add cost

Claims that go to court cost more to resolve, and failing insurers push costs onto everyone else. Florida is the clearest case. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation reports that in 2020 Florida generated about 9% of U.S. homeowners claims and more than 79% of homeowners claim lawsuits. By the end of 2025 those figures were about 5% and 41%, following the 2022 and 2023 reforms, according to Insurance Journal's July 2026 report on OIR's stability report. The reforms are summarized in florida's 2022–2023 property insurance reforms explained.

Louisiana's story is hurricane-driven. After Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta in 2020 and Ida in 2021, the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association's 2025 annual report refers to a record eleven insurance insolvencies. Insolvencies fall back on solvent insurers through guaranty-fund assessments, and fewer insurers means less competition. Triple-I reported in July 2026 that 17 new insurers have entered Louisiana's homeowners market since 2024 and that rate growth slowed to 4.6% in 2025 from 10.4% in 2023 (Reinsurance News). Each of those is one-state evidence rather than a rule.

Driver 4: rate regulation and timing

State rules decide how fast a premium can follow risk. GAO found that median approval times for rate requests in 2020 to 2024 were longest in Colorado (331 days) and California (305 days), and that homeowners in states where regulators take longer to approve premium changes tend to have more difficulty finding insurance. It cautioned that its model shows association, not causation. The practical reading is that a regulated state can have a lower average premium and a harder market, as the california's home insurance crisis shows, while a state that lets rates move faster can have higher averages and more insurers willing to write. how insurers file rate increases with regulators and prior approval vs file-and-use rate laws describe the systems.

Expensive is not the same as unaffordable

The dollar ranking and the burden ranking differ. GAO found that state average premiums as a percentage of 2023 median household income were highest in Florida, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Oklahoma ranks fifth in dollars yet sits with Florida and Louisiana as one of the three highest-burden states, so the burden ranking reflects household incomes as well as premiums. That gap is where the home insurance affordability crisis: what the data show picks up.

How to use the state numbers on your own quote

1. Find your state's 2023 HO-3 average above (the full table is in the NAIC report), use the home insurance rules by state tool for your state's regulator and market, then ask whether your quote's dwelling limit is similar to the typical home. A quote far above the average with a large dwelling limit may be fine.
2. Compare your renewal with the previous one using the home insurance renewal increase checker. If your state is on the expensive list, check whether the deductible structure changed, particularly a percentage wind/hail deductible.
3. Look for mitigation credits that apply where risk is concentrated: wind-mitigation inspections in Florida, FORTIFIED roof discounts in Alabama and Louisiana, and impact-resistant roofs where hail is the problem.
4. Get quotes from more than one kind of carrier, because insurers price the same house very differently when their appetite for a state's risk differs.
5. If no admitted carrier will write the house, the state's residual market plan is the fallback. See FAIR plans explained: the insurer of last resort for homes.

Key takeaways

• In the NAIC's 2023 data, the five costliest states for an HO-3 were Louisiana ($3,027), Texas ($2,864), Florida ($2,779), Colorado ($2,492) and Oklahoma ($2,486), against a $1,737 national average.
• GAO found premiums track wind and wildfire risk, with severe or extreme wind risk associated with premiums about 58% higher; hail drives much of the Plains and Rockies cost.
• Reinsurance prices, litigation and insurer insolvencies push premiums up in the states where they concentrate, and several of those pressures have eased since 2023.
• An average premium reflects home values and coverage choices, so compare your quote on dwelling limit and deductibles, not only price.
• The costliest state in dollars is not always the least affordable: Florida, Louisiana and Oklahoma carry the highest premium-to-income burden, according to GAO.