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Insurance Costs Can’t Be Ignored

Who are you going to believe? The Kinder Institute report shows homeowners insurance has become a growing barrier to housing affordability across states such as Texas. But Matic has a newly released U.S. home insurance premium trends report where the findings suggest the market is beginning to turn a corner as premium growth slows and competition among insurers returns. Based on an analysis of 3 million Matic quotes and policies, the report found that a record 11.7 percent of home owners renewing their insurance policy saw their premium decrease during the first half of 2026, up from 7.4 percent in 2025 and 4.9 percent in 2024, the highest share Matic has recorded since tracking this data.

Matic tells us that premium growth continued to moderate, with premiums for new home insurance policies increasing 5.9 percent year over year, down from a peak of 18.7 percent in 2024. Homeowners had more insurance options available, with the average number of quotes per person increasing 27 percent from 2025 as more carriers returned to the market.

Orion’s brokers are seeing different things in different parts of the country and, indeed, the recovery remains uneven. States including California, Florida, and New Jersey continuing to experience double-digit premium increases. Despite improving market conditions, insurance continues to account for a growing share of the cost of homeownership. It is popular for the mainstream media to point to the lending industry as the culprit regarding affordability, but the truth is that there are many contributors to higher cost.

For years, mortgage affordability has been measured primarily through the relationship between income, home prices, interest rates, and the monthly mortgage payment. That framework is becoming harder to defend as homeowners’ insurance costs rise far faster than wages in some markets. When insurance premiums increase by roughly 30 percent while wages have grown only a fraction of that amount, the financial strain does not end at the closing table. It follows the borrower into homeownership, potentially turning a payment that looked manageable at origination into a much heavier obligation at renewal.

Orion’s brokers are constantly working with borrowers on this. We need to start treating insurance as a more meaningful part of the affordability conversation, including asking whether borrowers should be stress-tested for the possibility of rising premiums in the same way we already consider other risks.

Experienced brokers are there for our clients. Rather than treating insurance as another figure that gets collected during underwriting and then forgotten, it can become part of an ongoing conversation with the homeowner, including check-ins before renewal and discussions about how changing costs affect the household's finances. That kind of consultation becomes particularly important when the pressures on homeowners begin to compound, because insurance, taxes, healthcare, and other expenses all compete for the same limited household income.

Orion thinks about not only about how our brokers help someone qualify for a home, but how together we can help them remain financially capable of keeping it. If insurance continues to become a larger component of the monthly cost of homeownership, understanding that expense and helping borrowers plan for it will become an increasingly important part of responsible lending and long-term borrower relationships.

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