Insurance Premiums Rising: Home Rates Cool as Health Costs Surge

The bill keeps getting bigger, even as the increases slow

American households have spent three years absorbing steep insurance increases on their homes, cars and health coverage. The latest numbers for fall 2026 show something odd. Home and auto premiums are now rising more slowly, but they are not going back down. At the same time, it is getting harder to hold on to a homeowners policy at all. And health insurance, the largest insurance bill most families pay, is heading into its steepest jump in more than two decades.

Our reading: the period of headline-grabbing home and auto rate hikes is fading, but the affordability problem is not. It has moved from the price of coverage to whether you can get coverage, and from property insurance to health insurance.

Home insurance: up 24% in three years, and still climbing

NerdWallet analyzed more than 840 million rate estimates. It found that a typical U.S. home with good credit and no claims cost 24% more to insure in early 2026 than in early 2023, an increase of about $496, bringing the median premium to $2,564.1 The pace has eased. The median rose 10.8% in the year to early 2025, when 29 states saw double-digit increases, but only 4.6% in the most recent year. Premiums actually fell in 18 states and Washington, D.C.1

The estimates of what homeowners pay differ depending on who is counting. Insurance.com puts the 2026 national average at $2,872 for its standard policy.5 Insurify expects its own average to reach $3,057 by year's end, up roughly 4% from 2025 and about 46% since 2021, which is about three times the rate of inflation.69 Insurify also puts the five-year increase at 49%, including a 12% jump in 2025.7 The dollar figures differ because each firm prices a different model policy. What matters is that they agree on the direction: a large cumulative rise, with this year's increase in the low-to-mid single digits.

The averages hide big differences between states. Florida is still the outlier at an average of $8,471, nearly three times the national figure.5 Nebraska saw the largest dollar increase of any state, $960, which took its average to $5,513. Colorado rose 11% to $5,511.5 Massachusetts had the biggest percentage gain, 42.9%, though its average of $2,112 is still below the national mark.6 NerdWallet's data points to the Midwest as the hardest-hit region over three years. Premiums there rose 25%, compared with 16.4% in the West, and Wisconsin led at nearly 41%.1 Yahoo Finance reported the same regional pattern.10

The age of a house now matters a lot. Insuring a home built in 1984 costs 81% more than insuring a new build, a gap of $1,149 a year, up from 59% in 2023.1 Over the past year, new-home premiums fell slightly while older-home premiums kept rising.1 For anyone buying a house, that gap belongs in the budget just as much as the interest rate.

Keeping coverage is the new pressure point

The more worrying trend is about whether people can keep their policies. A National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) analysis covered 103 million homeowners policies from 2018 to 2024.4 It counted roughly 2.02 million insurer-initiated nonrenewals in 2024, meaning the insurer declined to renew the policy.2 The nonrenewal rate per 1,000 policies rose between 96% and 216% depending on the region since 2018, with the West at the top of that range.4 Inflation-adjusted average premiums rose between 18.3% and 43.3% by region over the same years.3

Utah has the highest nonrenewal rate in the country: insurers declined to renew 4.45% of policies, about one in 22. California is second at 2.93%.2 In New Mexico, nonrenewals have nearly tripled since 2021, to more than 6,200 in the most recent year, according to the state insurance office.4 NAIC President Mike Causey said the national market is "operationally resilient."4 That may be true of the industry's finances, but it is cold comfort to a homeowner who gets a form letter and has 75 days to find replacement coverage.

One caveat matters here. The NAIC data stops at 2024, the year before premium growth cooled. So the official count of nonrenewals lags the softer pricing now showing up in rate filings. It would be a mistake to assume the two trends have reversed together.

Voters have noticed. In an Insurify poll of likely midterm voters, 19% of current or former home and renters policyholders said their coverage had become too expensive to keep, and only 24% felt fully informed about what their renewal might cost.7 California has passed new rules aimed at insurer withdrawals and growth in its FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, but they do not take effect until January 2028.7

Why the pace is easing, and why that may not last

The main sign of relief is in what insurers are asking regulators for. Between January and mid-August 2026, 53.6% of homeowners rate filings sought increases, with a median request of just 1%. That compares with 68.7% of filings and a 5.4% median in 2025, and 81.6% and 10% in 2024.1 NerdWallet also points to long regulatory approval times. The slowest filings took between about 660 and nearly 1,200 days to clear, which helps explain why homeowners kept seeing increases well after insurers' own costs had stabilized.1

The forces behind the past increases have not gone away. Severe convective storms, such as hail and windstorms, have caused more than $42 billion in insured losses for three years running. Reinsurance, the insurance that insurers buy for themselves, and construction costs remain high.6 Industry outlooks also cite tariffs and labor shortages as risks.8 Today's calm depends partly on a quiet hurricane season.1 Our view is that the slowdown is a pause, not a reset.

Auto insurance: the same pattern

Car insurance looks much like home insurance. NerdWallet found that the median full-coverage premium for a driver with a clean record rose 32.3% from January 2023 to January 2026, from $1,784 to $2,359. That increase was nearly two and a half times as fast as personal income grew.11 Since 2020, auto insurance prices in the Consumer Price Index have risen 56.2%, compared with 26% for consumer prices overall.11 Drivers with poor credit saw the steepest increase, 37.7%. Six Midwestern states averaged increases of nearly 53%.11

The sources disagree on how much relief drivers are getting. Insurify says premiums actually fell 6% in 2025 and expects about a 1% rise in 2026, with full coverage averaging $2,237 in the first half of the year and increases in 32 states by year's end.14 Connecticut is projected to lead at about 15%.14 NerdWallet measured a 2.6% rise in the latest year. It also reported that insurers sought increases on only about a quarter of policies in 2026.11 Beinsure likewise expects roughly a 1% national increase, with New Jersey up more than 10%.12 Whichever figure is right, drivers are paying about the same as last year at a price that is much higher than it was three years ago.

Health insurance: the cost that is speeding up

While property and auto pricing cool, health coverage is moving the other way. Benefits consultants expect employer costs per worker to rise sharply in 2027:

• Marsh: 8.2%, the largest increase since 2003, even after employers' cost-cutting moves.21
• Aon: 9.5%.21
• WTW: 11.1%.21

According to Marsh, 59% of employers plan cost-cutting changes, including higher deductibles.21 Health policy experts quoted by The Hill say employers are running out of ways to shift costs onto workers. Some small businesses may stop offering coverage altogether.24

The individual market, where people buy their own plans through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, is in worse shape. A KFF review of filings from 276 marketplace insurers found a median proposed increase of 15% for 2027. That comes on top of a finalized 20% increase for 2026.21 A Washington Post analysis found that rates already finalized in 37 states and D.C. are rising about 16%, with increases above 20% in much of Arizona, New Mexico and Montana.22 Enhanced federal premium subsidies expired at the end of 2025. As a result, the average monthly premium enrollees actually paid rose 58% in 2026, to $178.21

Insurers also expect a familiar spiral. Younger, healthier people drop coverage, which leaves a sicker and more expensive pool of enrollees, which pushes premiums higher again.2426 The main cost drivers insurers cite are growing use of GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs, consolidation among hospitals and doctors' practices, and labor shortages.2127

The takeaway

Across every type of insurance, the shared story is fewer choices for consumers. Homeowners face nonrenewals, ACA enrollees are leaving the market, and workers face higher deductibles. Slower increases in home and auto rates make the bills a bit more predictable, but they do not make them affordable, and they do nothing for families whose renewal notice never comes. Open enrollment for health plans begins Nov. 1.26 With insurance costs now a midterm election issue, the pressure on politicians to act will probably keep growing.724