The renewal notice came in a plain envelope in early September, sitting in the mailbox between a seed catalog and a flyer for a church fish fry. I opened it standing at the end of the driveway and read the number twice. Our homeowners premium was going from $1,840 a year to $2,390. No claims, no new additions to the house, nothing different on our end except that we were a year older and so was the roof.
I'm not an insurance expert, and I'm not going to tell anyone what to do with their own policy. But I spent most of September working through this, and a few people have asked what the process looked like. So here is what we did, in the order we did it.
First, I read the policy we already had
I'm a little embarrassed that this was the first time I'd read our policy all the way through. When we bought the house in 2021, I signed what the lender needed and filed it. This time I printed the declarations page and the main policy, sat on the porch with a pencil, and underlined anything I didn't understand.
Things I learned from that first read:
- Our wind and hail deductible is 2% of dwelling coverage, not the flat deductible I'd been picturing. On a house our size that's a real number, and it is the deductible that matters most for storms around here.
- The dwelling coverage amount had gone up on its own, which explained part of the increase. Building costs have risen, and the policy adjusts for that.
- Some things I assumed were covered weren't, or had separate limits. I made a list of questions.
Then I asked for quotes
I contacted our current company first and asked whether anything could be adjusted. They offered a small discount for paying in full, which helped a little. Then I got quotes from four other companies: two through an independent agent in town who works with several insurers, and two directly online.
The single most useful thing I did was make every quote match. Same dwelling coverage, same personal property amount, same liability limit, same deductibles wherever possible. The first round of quotes came back all over the place, and it turned out that two of the cheap ones had quietly lowered coverage amounts or raised deductibles. Once everything matched, the spread got much narrower.
My comparison sheet
| Line | What I checked |
|---|---|
| Dwelling coverage | Same amount on every quote |
| Replacement cost vs. actual cash value | For both the house and our belongings |
| Standard deductible | Matched |
| Wind/hail deductible | Percentage, and what that is in dollars |
| Roof coverage | Whether older roofs get paid at a depreciated value |
| Liability | Matched |
| Discounts | Bundling, paying in full, smoke detectors, new wiring |
| Annual premium | Last, on purpose |
Putting the premium in the last row was deliberate. When it was first, my eyes went straight to the cheapest number and I stopped reading.
What we chose
We ended up switching to the second insurer the agent found, at $2,010 a year. Coverage amounts are the same as our old policy, the wind and hail deductible is still 2%, and the roof is covered on a replacement-cost basis, which was not true of one of the cheaper options. It's still $170 more than we paid last year. I've made my peace with that. Nobody I know around here has seen their premium go down lately.
I did the switch carefully. The new policy started the same day the old one would have renewed, and I didn't cancel anything until I had the new declarations page in hand and had sent it to our mortgage company, since they pay the premium from our escrow account.
What I'd tell a friend
Not advice, just what I'd say over the fence:
- Read your own policy before you shop. You can't compare what you don't understand.
- Make the quotes match before you compare prices.
- Write down the wind deductible in actual dollars. It changes how you think about it.
- Ask what isn't covered. Then ask again.
- Don't leave a gap between policies, even a single day.
The whole thing took about two weeks of evenings, a few long phone calls, and more coffee than I want to admit. I filed the new policy in the folder above the fridge and wrote a note on the calendar for next August: read the renewal the day it arrives. Then I went out back and pulled weeds for an hour, because my brain needed something with no fine print in it.
