Woodward Insurance
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California Homeowner Insurane in 2024

• Paul Woodward
• 09 May, 2024

Getting homeowners insurance in California has become increasingly difficult throughout 2023 and so far, this year as well. As the market continues to deteriorate and carriers pull out of the state or large portions of the state many homeowners have either been offered renewals with rates as high as double their prior terms or even worse, been told that they would be non-renewed.

Recently, one of the nation’s largest insurance companies announced that they would be no longer writing any new homeowners insurance policies for California homeowners, and will also be non-renewing over 50,000 policies.

The most impacted homeowners are those who are located in areas that would be considered high brush areas, where the carriers are concerned with catastrophic losses due to wildfires. The high brush area homeowners have recently been non-renewed from their current carrier at a rate higher than any other group, and/or have had little to no success in the standard market finding a carrier that would even offer coverage, with no consideration for the price.

Many homeowners have had to opt to apply for coverage with the California FAIR plan, also known as Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, rather that getting a traditional HO3 or HO5 policy because they had no success finding an alternative. The overall increase in FAIR total policies in force with the FAIR plan grew by 22% from 2022 to 2023, with the plan ending the year with 350,000 policies in force totally more than 5% of all homeowner’s coverage in California.

During 2023, the California FAIR plan increased their rates by 15.7% and although there has yet to be another announcement of a 2024 rate increase, their representatives have clearly stated that there is no questioning that the rates will be increasing again soon.