by Ashley
Like nearly every industry, it seems, construction has been hit hard by inflation. From the cost of materials to labor and everything in-between, costs have gone up dramatically in the past few years for building homes. Not only that, home prices themselves have gone up as well. While we paid a relatively modest price for our home in August 2020, the estimated value (at least according to Zillow) has increased by well over $100,000 in the past 4 years. That means to rebuild (in the event of complete loss), would cost more as well.
Insurance Costs Rising
Even knowing and understanding all of this, I was gob smacked to open up our annual home owner’s insurance policy renewal notice. The annual fee had gone up over $600 since last year. In fact, it has more than doubled in the amount of time we have lived here. Tracking our payments, we were in the $600’s for 2020 and 2021, then in the $700’s for 2022, up to the $900s for 2023. But this new 2024 policy renewal notice clocked in at a whopping $1566.
Comparison Shopping
I ended up calling around to 3 different companies and, turns out…..our rate was pretty competitive. One company couldn’t beat it. Another beat it by a couple hundred, but with lower coverage. The third company is the company where we currently have the home owner’s policy. And by adjusting some of the limits, they were able to bring it down to $1345 for the annual fee. A savings of a couple hundred dollars.
Time-Cost Tradeoff
Granted, it took what felt like all day between the three phone calls (why do these types of calls take so long? Ugh!). At one point I started to wonder if putting all my time into these phone calls was worth it to save a couple hundred dollars? Either way, it’s done now. I was pleased to be able to get the price down at least a little bit.
Has anyone else noticed a similar huge jump in your home owner’s insurance? We have never had a claim, have great credit, lots of safety features in our home, etc. I am shocked that in such a short time our policy has gone up so significantly – literally doubling in just a few years! Has everyone experienced this same situation?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
I just read that arizona leads the country with the largest homeowners insurance increase. Apparently the many weather related issues over the last few years has caused claims to increase significantly.
Oh that’s interesting. There have definitely been a lot of weather related issues the past few years. Just this monsoon season we lost a big Palo Verde tree in our front yard and had to pay to have it removed. We just paid out of pocket (it wasn’t enough to warrant a home owner’s claim), but I know many who have had major roofing damages that probably did warrant insurance claims.
YES! Our homeowners insurance went up by a crazy percentage this year. Maybe 50% ? I can’t remember off the top of my head, but it was enough that my husband went down there with the policy to talk to the agent. This is after our car insurance went up by a huge percentage last year.
The huge increases are what shocked me! Going up $50 or $100 is one thing. But having our rate literally double over the past 4 years is wild to me – especially in the absence of any damages or claims!