Facts + Statistics: Homeowners and renters insurance

 

Homeowners insurance expenditures

The average homeowners insurance premium rose by 3.1 percent in 2018, following a 1.6 percent increase in 2017, according to a January 2021 study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the latest data available. The average renters insurance premium fell 0.6 percent in 2018 marking the fourth consecutive annual decline. Renters insurance premiums fell 2.7 percent in 2017. (See tables in Expenditures for homeowners and renters insurance section).

 

Home inventories

On average, over nine survey years ending in 2020, 49 percent of homeowners said they prepared an inventory of their possessions to help document losses for their insurers, according to polls conducted for the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I). Forty-three percent of homeowners said they had an inventory in the 2020 Triple-I Consumer Poll. The survey showed that homeowners in the South and West were more likely to have a home inventory (48 percent and 41 percent), followed by homeowners in the Northeast and Midwest (both regions at 39 percent).

 

Causes of homeowners insurance losses

In 2020, 6 percent of insured homes had a claim, according to ISO. Property damage, including theft, accounted for 97.7 percent of homeowners insurance claims in 2020 (latest data available). Changes in the percentage of each type of homeowners loss from one year to another are partially influenced by large fluctuations in the number and severity of weather-related events such as hurricanes and winter storms. There are two ways of looking at losses: by the average number of claims filed per 100 policies (frequency) and by the average amount paid for each claim (severity). The loss category “water damage and freezing” includes damage caused by mold, if covered. Every state except Alaska, Arkansas, New York, North Carolina and Virginia has adopted an ISO mold limitation for homeowners insurance coverage, which allows insurers to exclude the coverage unless the condition results from a covered peril.

Homeowners Insurance Claims Frequency*

• About one in 20 insured homes has a claim each year.
• About one in 35 insured homes has a property damage claim related to wind or hail each year.
• About one in 60 insured homes has a property damage claim caused by water damage or freezing each year.
• About one in 385 insured homes has a property damage claim related to fire and lightning.
• About one in 525 insured homes has a property damage claim due to theft each year.
• About one in 1,425 homeowners policies has a liability claim related to the cost of lawsuits for bodily injury or property damage that the policyholder or family members cause to others.

*Insurance Information Institute calculations, based on ISO®, a Verisk Analytics® business, data for homeowners insurance claims from 2016-2020 (see table above).

 

Sinkhole claims

In March 2013 an entire house fell into a huge sinkhole in a suburb of Tampa, Florida, garnering national attention. Although such large, sudden and destructive sinkholes are relatively rare, thousands of small sinkholes appear in the U.S. each year. The most damage from sinkholes occurs in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Most homeowners insurance policies exclude coverage for sinkhole damage. However, homeowners insurance companies in Florida and Tennessee are required to offer the coverage. In Florida catastrophic ground cover collapse is mandatory; comprehensive sinkhole coverage is optional. (Note: For information on the Florida law see http://www.insuringflorida.org/articles/sinkholes.html. For statistics on Florida sinkholes see http://www.floir.com/sections/pandc/sinkholepage.aspx).

 

Consumer prices

The Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index (CPI) tracks changes in the prices paid by consumers for a representative basket of goods and services. The cost of living (all items) rose 4.7 percent in 2021. The cost of motor vehicle insurance increased 3.8 percent after a 4.6 percent decline in 2020, when drivers reduced their driving due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The cost of tenants and household insurance declined slightly, down 0.3 percent. Used cars and trucks increased a significant 26.6 percent and the median price of a single family home increased 17.7 percent and nearly 100 percent since 2012.

 

Expenditures for homeowners and renters insurance

The average homeowners insurance premium rose by 3.1 percent in 2018, following a 1.6 percent increase in 2017, according to a January 2021 study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the latest data available. The average renters insurance premium fell 0.6 percent in 2018 marking the fourth consecutive annual decline. Renters insurance premiums fell 2.7 percent in 2017.

The U.S. homeownership rate was 65.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The 2010 Census showed that in some of the largest cities renters outnumbered owners, including New York, where 69.0 percent of households were occupied by renters, followed by Los Angeles (61.8 percent), Chicago (55.1 percent) and Houston (54.6 percent). 

 

Home injuries

In 2020, 31.8 million Americans experienced an unintentional injury in the home that required aid from a medical professional, according to an analysis by the National Safety Council (NSC). There were 113,500 deaths from unintentional home injuries in 2020, up 21.1 percent from 2019. The overall death rate rose to 34.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2020.  Since 1912, the death rate had been almost unchanged at 28.5 deaths per 100,000 people. The number of unintentional home injury deaths has increased by 272 percent since 1999, largely due to increases in unintentional poisonings and falls.

 

High-risk markets

A myriad of different programs in place across the United States provide insurance to owners of property in high-risk areas who may have difficulty obtaining coverage from the standard market. Residual, shared or involuntary market programs make basic insurance coverage more readily available. Today, property insurance for the residual market is provided by Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plans, beach and windstorm plans, and two state-run insurance companies in Florida and Louisiana: Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and Louisiana’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Established in the late 1960s to ensure the continued provision of insurance in urban areas, FAIR plans often provide property insurance in both urban and coastal areas. Beach and windstorm plans cover predominantly wind-only risks in designated coastal areas. Over the past four decades FAIR and beach and windstorm plans experienced explosive growth both in the number of policies and in exposure value. However, the number of policies in FAIR plans peaked in 2011 and had been falling steadily through 2018, down 49.7 percent from 2011 to 2018, while exposure dropped by 54.6 percent. In 2019 the downward trend ended and from 2018 to 2020, total policies grew 10.1 percent while exposure grew 30.8 percent.

 

Renters and homeowners demographics

In 2020, 66.6 percent of housing units were owner occupied and 33.4 percent were renter occupied, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. In 2019, 32.1 percent of owner-occupied units housed people age 65 and over. The same year, 16.2 percent of rental units housed people over age 65.

The nation's homeowners paid a median of $1,510 monthly housing costs in 2019, compared with $1,301 for renters, according to the latest American Housing Survey from the Census.

However, renters usually paid a higher percentage of their household income on these costs than did owners, 45.1 percent compared with 26.5 percent of homeowners who spent 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs in 2019.