What affects homeowners insurance premiums?
Update: If you are a Washington state driver, please note the emergency rule banning the usage of credit scoring: Credit Scoring Ban.
Similar to how banks use various elements to determine credit worthiness of a borrower and interest rate of a loan, insurance companies utilize several factors to determine insurance premium for a customer’s policy.
In this article, we will go over the factors that affect the price of homeowners insurance premium.
There are four main categories of factors
Location of Your Home
Zip Code
Insurance companies use data from various sources including their own claims record history to evaluate risk levels for each zip code. Areas with consistently higher number of claims are more likely to have higher insurance premium.
Wildfire Zone
If your home is located in an area prone to wildfires, your insurance premium may increase to reflect that level of exposure.
Fire Protection
Your home’s access and proximity to nearby fire stations will also have an impact to your homeowners insurance premium. Being closer to a fully staffed and adequately equipped fire station allows a higher chance of mitigating further damages to your home in case of fire, and it also lowers the potential cost to repair or even rebuild your home.
Personal Information
Insurance Score
Credit History
Marital Status
In general, a married couple has a lower rate than non-married individuals.
