Austin Home Insurance

Austin Texas has reputedly the highest home insurance rates in the whole USA. This is as a result of several factors that are not instantly apparent to anyone unfamiliar with the area and the special issues that affect Austin home insurance prices.

Austin Home Insurance: Advice

The risk of hurricanes in Texas is much greater and goes much further inland than in most other states, largely due to the topography of the state and the position relative to the Gulf of Mexico. From the point of view of insurance providers, the chance of having claims simultaneously from large parts of the state drives Austin home insurance premiums and deductibles up significantly, as most insurance companies tend to be geographically constrained by state boundaries. In a phenomenon rarely seen in the rest of the country, Austin has many more ‘local’ insurers than most areas, so claimable events can significantly affect Austin home insurance providers more than in most other cities  

Tornados, wind ‘events’ and severe hail are much more common than in the Midwest for example. The amount of damage for each incident may be slightly less except for the infamous hailstorms, but they happen with much greater frequency. Austin home insurance premiums reflect the fact that it is not the safest place in the USA to build a house. This is unavoidable fact.

Special to the Austin home insurance industry is the ‘Black Mold’ phenomenon which has pushed Austin home insurance prices up a lot due to property repair, decontamination, prevention costs and devaluation, loss of use costs combined with the attached property related medical costs which can pass onto home insurance policies due to third party liability claims. Stachybotrys, or Austin Black Mold was first identified in 1993 and 1994 as the reason why many children were becoming seriously ill. There were numerous cases of severe pulmonary distress, especially amongst kids, and the fact that black mold was discovered in all the residences of these children led to it being blamed for the medical crisis. 

Although researchers are now divided, it seems likely that the mold, which is present almost everywhere was not the primary issue. Regardless, the cost to the Austin home insurance industry and thus Austin home insurance policy holders is enormous and still growing as more perhaps unnecessary claims are filed. It seems probable that the black mold debate will continue for many years, as almost all the alternative culprits have been found equally as unlikely as the mold to have caused the initial problem. 

In Austin, home insurance will set you back around 50% more than the national average.