HOMEOWNERS GUIDE

Which state carries the heaviest homeowners premium for its home values? Published averages, not a quote

A premium does not land in isolation. It lands on a household that also pays a mortgage, taxes, and repairs, in a state where homes are worth a particular amount. This guide ranks all 25 states in our table by a simple burden ratio: the published average annual premium divided by the median home value cited for that state. The basis matters from the first figure. Every premium here is a published average on a $300,000 dwelling basis, from the Bankrate True Cost of Home Insurance 2025 state table. Your premium will differ.

Byline: The ClearCoverCost Editors.

Disclaimer: Published averages and benchmark ranges, not a quote. This page is not insurance advice. Your premium will differ based on your home, location, claims history, and insurer. Flood insurance is separate from a standard homeowners policy.

Read the headline numbers with their basis attached

The national average we cite is $2,470 per year. Source: Bankrate True Cost of Home Insurance report (press release, August 25, 2025), 2025, verified 2026-11-01. The state premiums use a $300,000 dwelling coverage basis. Source for each state figure: Bankrate True Cost of Home Insurance 2025 state table (Bankrate report, August 25, 2025); median home value from Ruby Home 2023 median home price summary, 2025, verified 2026-11-01. Those two sources do different work. The premium is an average for a group of policies in a past period. The median home value is market context from a 2023 summary. Neither one is a quote for your home, and neither one should be read as one.

At the top of the burden ranking sits Louisiana, at $6,274 per year against a median home value of $200,947. The share is 3.12 percent, or about $3,122 per year for every $100,000 of median home value. At the bottom sits New Jersey, at $1,206 per year against a median home value of $500,717. The share there is 0.24 percent, or about $241 per $100,000. Louisiana's share is nearly thirteen times New Jersey's share on this arithmetic. That gap is the subject of this page. It is not a claim that a Louisiana homeowner and a California homeowner hold the same house, the same risk, or the same policy. They plainly do not.

Flood sits outside every figure here. If a home needs flood cover, that premium is separate, and a state ranking that leaves flood out will understate the full cost of insuring homes in places where rising water is a real exposure. Keep that limit in view while you read the table.

The full ranking: premium as a share of median home value

The table is sorted by the share, highest first. The premium column is the published average on the $300,000 dwelling basis named above. The multiple column compares each state premium with the national average of $2,470, shown to one decimal place. A multiple below 1.0 means the state average sits below the national average. A multiple above 1.0 means it sits above. A state can sit below the national average on premium and still rank high on burden if home values in that state are low. Alabama and Missouri show that pattern. A state can also sit above the national average and rank lower on burden if home values are high. Colorado shows that pattern.

Check the extremes against their state pages. Florida ranks second, at $5,735 per year and 1.41 percent. Texas ranks fourth, at $4,078 per year and 1.33 percent, just behind Alabama at 1.37 percent. At the low end, New Jersey has the lowest published average in the table, $1,206 per year, and the lowest share, 0.24 percent. Washington sits at 0.26 percent and Massachusetts at 0.28 percent. The state pages carry each figure with its own source line, its rank by premium alone, and its comparison with the national average.

What this table can check

First, it can check a quote against a state average on the same basis. If your quote is built on a $300,000 dwelling limit, compare it with your state figure in the premium column before you compare it with anything else. A quote well above the state average calls for an explanation you can follow, factor by factor. A quote well below it calls for a terms check, because a lower price built on weaker settlement terms or a larger deductible is not the same product at a better price.

Second, it can check a story you hear about a state. A claim that premiums are heavy in a state means one thing if it refers to the dollar average and another if it refers to the share of home value. Colorado's average, $3,413 per year, is 1.4 times the national average, yet its share is 0.61 percent, in the lower half of this ranking, because the median home value cited for Colorado is $555,300. Michigan's average, $2,351 per year, sits below the national average, yet its share is 1.01 percent, sixth in this ranking, because the median home value cited for Michigan is $233,019. Both statements about each state are true. They answer different questions.

Third, it can set the size of a change. If your renewal moves by $300, you can place that move against your state average and against the national average, and judge whether you are looking at a small adjustment or a move that deserves a full round of competing quotes. The arithmetic does not tell you why the move happened. It tells you whether the move is large enough to spend an afternoon on.

What this table cannot check

It cannot price your home. Market value and rebuilding cost are different units, and this site returns to that point because confusing them causes real harm. Market value includes land, location, and buyer demand. A dwelling limit should follow the cost to rebuild the structure at local labor and material prices. Land does not burn down. A home bought for $250,000 may cost $380,000 to rebuild. A home bought for $700,000 may cost $420,000 to rebuild. Our replacement cost guide works through that separation in full.

It cannot tell you whether your own premium is fair for your own risk. The average blends new roofs and old roofs, homes with no claims and homes with repeated water claims, flat deductibles and percentage deductibles, and streets with very different weather exposure inside the same state. A state is a large place to average. Coastal and inland homes in the same state can face different wind exposure, and the published average holds both.

It cannot compare two quotes that differ in terms. A table of averages has nothing to say about a roof settlement schedule, an endorsement you dropped, or a liability limit you raised. Those live in your declarations page and in the policy form, not in a state ranking. Our declarations page guide shows where each of those terms sits on the page an insurer actually sends you.

The drivers to ask about, framed as questions

Readers often want a ranking of causes. This page will not give you percentages for causes, because the sources we checked do not publish a clean split of a premium into roof, claims, deductible, and dwelling limit for these states, and inventing one would mislead you. What we can give you is the set of questions that a careful homeowner asks, in the order that usually surfaces the answer fastest.

Roof age. Ask: what roof age and material do you have on file for my home, and what settlement applies if the roof is damaged beyond repair? An older roof can mean a higher price, an inspection, or a settlement that pays a depreciated amount instead of replacement cost. If the age on file is wrong, documentation is the fix. Our roof age and material guide lists the records that prove a roof age and explains the payback arithmetic of replacing a roof for premium reasons alone, which rarely closes on premium alone.

Claims history. Ask: which claims on my record are being counted, and for how long will each one stay in the rating? You are not asking for a forecast. No one can give you a reliable one. You are asking what is in the file today, so a claim that belongs to a prior owner, a wrong address, or a closed inquiry is not quietly priced as if it were yours.

Deductible. Ask: what is my deductible in dollars, for each kind of loss? A flat $1,000 deductible and a 2 percent deductible read very differently on a $300,000 dwelling limit, where 2 percent is $6,000, and on a $500,000 limit, where 2 percent is $10,000. Ask whether wind or hail carries its own deductible line. Our deductible guide does that arithmetic on $300,000, $500,000, and $750,000 limits.

Dwelling limit. Ask: how was my dwelling limit set, and what rebuilding estimate stands behind it? If the limit rose, the premium has a reason to rise with it, because the insurer is promising to spend more after a total loss. If the limit rose past a careful local rebuild estimate, ask what input drove it. Lowering a limit below rebuild cost to cut a premium leaves you funding the gap after a loss, which is the trade our premium lowering guide warns against in detail.

How to compare a renewal against the state average with identical terms

Start with the renewal in front of you and write down six lines before you look at the price: dwelling limit, other structures limit, personal property limit and its settlement basis, liability limit, deductible in dollars for general losses, and any separate wind or hail deductible in dollars. Add the roof settlement basis as a seventh line. That list is the product you are buying.

Next, find your state in the table above and note the published average and the multiple of the national average. If your dwelling limit is not $300,000, the comparison is rough by construction. Say so to yourself in plain words before you draw any conclusion. A $500,000 dwelling limit should cost more than a $300,000 limit in the same state, all else equal, because the promise is larger.

Then run the Home Cover Benchmark. The tool starts from the same state published average, applies printed factors for dwelling band, roof age, and deductible, and returns a benchmark range with each factor shown. The ends of that range are the lower end and the upper end of a benchmark. Neither end is your price. The value of the tool is that it prints its working, so you can disagree with a factor and see what changes.

Finally, if you shop, shop with an identical spec. Send each insurer the same six or seven lines you wrote down and ask each one to quote that spec. Compare the returned quotes line by line before you compare totals. Our renewal shopping guide gives the side by side worksheet and the traps that hide inside a cheaper quote, including a percentage deductible you have not priced and a depreciated roof payout.

A state average says where the market sits; it does not explain your own renewal. To trace your increase to specific lines, use the guide to why a premium goes up at renewal.

Flood is a separate cost, and it changes the picture for some homes

Every share in the table excludes flood. For a home with no flood exposure worth insuring against, that exclusion changes little. For a home in a mapped flood area, or a home that has taken rising water before, the full cost of cover includes a flood policy bought separately, usually through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood insurer. Two states with similar shares in this table can therefore carry very different full costs once flood is added home by home. Our flood guide explains the gap, the waiting period that applies to most new flood policies, and why a standard homeowners policy does not fill it. Read it before you treat any ranking, including this one, as a total cost of insuring a particular address.

A short method note, so you can repeat the arithmetic

Share equals published average annual premium divided by median home value, multiplied by 100. Per $100,000 equals published average divided by median home value, multiplied by 100,000, rounded to the nearest dollar. Multiple equals published average divided by the national average of $2,470, shown to one decimal place. We computed every row in the table from the checked in data file for this site, which carries the source name, source year, and verified date for each state. If a source revises a figure, we update the figure, the year, and the verified date together.

One limit deserves plain words. The premium source and the home value source come from different years and different publications, because that is the verified record we have. The premium table is 2025. The median home value summary is 2023. A share built from the two is a comparison device, not a measurement taken on one day. If you need a current market value for a decision about your own home, this page is not that source, and we will not pretend otherwise.

This ranking uses Bankrate's quote-sample state figures. Regulator data measures something different: premium actually written per policy. Our page on homeowners insurance cost per month explains why the two kinds of average disagree and lists NAIC's 2023 HO-3 averages for all 50 states and D.C.

Common questions