How much is homeowners insurance per month? Four published averages, and why they disagree

Source: NAIC homeowners report, Data for 2023, Table 4, HO-3 totals by state. We recomputed every average from the printed written premium and house-years, and the state totals sum to the countrywide premium of $97,559,502,869 on 56,164,751.3 house-years. Verified Oct 2026. Monthly figures are the annual average divided by 12.

Three things in the table deserve a second look. First, the top of the list is the Gulf: Louisiana, Texas and Florida are the only states above $2,700, and our guides to wind, hail and hurricane deductibles and Florida Citizens cover the coastal rules there. Second, several interior states rank higher than people expect. Colorado, Oklahoma and Nebraska all average above $2,100, a reminder that coastal hurricane exposure is not the only thing that lifts a state average. Third, some large states sit near the middle because their averages mix very different regions. California's $1,655 is one number for a very large and varied state, and a statewide average says little about any one part of it.

Florida also shows why the HO-3 column is not the whole market. Dwelling fire policies, which cover less than a homeowners package, made up 17.8 percent of Florida's dwelling fire and owner-occupied house-years in 2023, against 2.9 percent countrywide. A statewide HO-3 average leaves those owners out, and it still cannot tell a Miami-Dade owner what a policy on one particular street costs.

Same dwelling amount, two sources: eight states

The fairest test of the gap between a quote sample and written premium holds the dwelling amount steady. NAIC's Table 4 reports, for every state, the HO-3 average for homes insured for $300,000 to $324,999, which brackets Bankrate's $300,000 profile. Bankrate's August 25, 2025 release prints state averages for its five most and five least expensive states by share of income; the table uses the eight of those ten whose figures read unambiguously in the release, and leaves out two whose layout we could not pair with certainty. The two columns are different measures from different years and stay separately named; the ratio column is our arithmetic.

Sources: Bankrate, True Cost of Home Insurance press release, August 25, 2025, state table (verified Oct 2026); NAIC homeowners report, Data for 2023, Table 4, HO-3 column, $300,000 to $324,999 row for each state, average recomputed from written premium and house-years (verified Oct 2026).

The gap is not one size, and it does not always run the same way. In Nebraska the quote sample is about 3.07 times the written average for the band; in Florida 2.37 times and Louisiana 2.20 times. In New Jersey the two nearly meet, at $1,206 against $1,181. In Delaware ($964 against $988) and Vermont ($834 against $979) the quote sample is the lower figure. A ratio near 1 says the two methods describe roughly the same market for that coverage amount; a ratio near 3 says a homeowner should be careful which one they quote, because the choice alone can triple the apparent price.

We do not attribute each state's ratio to a single cause. The method differences set out earlier, the two-year gap between 2023 written premium and July 2025 quotes, the richer liability and contents limits in the quote profile, the weighting, and discounts already reflected in written premium, all vary by state. What the table does show is the practical point: before comparing a renewal with any published state average, find out which kind of average it is.

The year matters: what the trend data does and does not say

A monthly average is a snapshot of a year that has already ended. FIO's report traces premium per policy in inflation-adjusted dollars at $1,598 in 2018, $1,628 in 2019, $1,659 in 2020, $1,695 in 2021 and $1,737 in 2022. FIO says the increase from 2018 to 2022 was 8.7 percent faster than inflation, which is what $1,737 divided by $1,598 works out to.

NAIC's market study carries the series to 2024 in nominal terms. Average premium per policy rose from 2018 to 2024 by 44 percent in the Northeast zone at the low end and 74 percent in the Western zone at the high end. After adjusting to 2025 dollars with the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the rises shrink to 18.3 percent and 43.3 percent. The 2024 averages by zone are $1,818 in the Southeast, $1,600 in the Western zone, $1,476 in the Midwest and $1,396 in the Northeast, which is about $152, $133, $123 and $116 a month. Like the national $1,600, these zone figures cover every homeowners-line form, renters and condo policies included.

NAIC's earlier release on 2022 data reported the HO-3 average up 11.26 percent nationwide over 2021 and all owner-occupied forms up 10.5 percent. Those are measured increases for past years. They are not a forecast for anyone's next renewal, and we do not print one. Our guide to why a renewal premium went up traces a specific increase to the lines on a declarations page that caused it.

What the monthly figure looks like inside a mortgage payment

Owners whose premium is paid through a mortgage escrow account see it as part of the monthly payment rather than as a bill from the insurer. Federal rules under Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.17, let the servicer collect one-twelfth of the estimated yearly escrow disbursements each month and hold a cushion of no more than one-sixth of those annual disbursements. So a $1,737 premium paid through escrow adds about $145 a month to the payment, plus the property tax share, and the account may hold up to about $290 of extra cushion for the insurance part.

That design is also why a premium increase can show up as a bigger jump in the mortgage payment than the increase itself. If the premium rises between the servicer's annual analyses, the account can run short; Regulation X sets how a shortage is handled, and our escrow guide works one through in full. If you pay the insurer directly, ask whether a monthly payment plan carries any installment charge and compare the yearly totals rather than the monthly amounts.

Holding your own premium against the right average

A fair comparison lines up three things: the policy form, the coverage amount and the year. Here is one worked through with stated inputs. Suppose a North Carolina owner holds a renewal of $2,050 a year, about $171 a month, on an HO-3 policy with a $340,000 dwelling limit.

The $2,050 renewal is an invented input; the four yardsticks come from NAIC's Table 4, where the North Carolina band average is $223,082,194 of written premium on 126,743.5 house-years. The closest yardstick is the third row, because it matches the state, the form and the coverage amount. It still leaves a $290 gap, about 16.5 percent. Before reading that as overpaying, account for what the yardstick cannot see: the renewal is priced two or three years after the data year, the location within the state, the deductible, roof age and claims record all move the number. The useful output of the comparison is a short list of questions for the agent, not a verdict.

The countrywide band in the last row shows the opposite mistake. Against a national average for the same coverage amount, the renewal looks $558 high, but about half of it, $268, is simply the difference between the North Carolina and countrywide averages for that band ($1,760 against $1,492). Comparing a state premium with a national average overstates the gap whenever the state runs above the national figure, and understates it in states like Ohio or Wisconsin that run below.

For a range built from this site's own state averages with each factor printed, run the Home Cover Benchmark. For an apples-to-apples look at competing offers, the quote comparison worksheet lines up limits, deductibles and settlement terms, which matter more than any average.

What none of these averages include

All four figures exclude flood, which the standard homeowners policy does not cover. Bankrate's release says in so many words that its premiums do not reflect the cost of flood insurance. Flood coverage is a separate policy, usually through the National Flood Insurance Program, and our guide to why flood insurance is separate covers it. The ISO HO-3 sample form also excludes earthquake under its earth movement exclusion, so earthquake cover is a separate purchase, as our earthquake guide explains.

The figures also exclude other policy forms that people loosely call home insurance. NAIC's 2023 data puts the countrywide renters (HO-4) average at $173 a year, about $14 a month, and the condo unit-owner (HO-6) average at $658, about $55 a month. HO-5 open-perils policies, which cover personal property more broadly than an HO-3, averaged $1,891, about $158 a month, and dwelling fire policies, which cover less, averaged $1,019. Our page on renters insurance cost by state sets the HO-4 figures out by state and by coverage amount, and the HO-3 vs HO-5 guide explains what the extra breadth buys.

Last, an average is a description of a group in a past period. It cannot tell you what an insurer will charge for your house, and it does not rank insurers. The method behind every figure on this site, and the reason we keep Bankrate's state table separate from regulator data, is on the methodology page.

Monthly cost questions

Next step: open the state cost table and find your own state's published figure, then hold it beside the NAIC monthly average above. Where the two disagree by a wide margin, the difference is usually the year and the coverage profile, and that tells you which questions to bring to your agent.