Home Insurance Premiums Exceed Property Taxes in Two-Thirds of U.S. Counties, Bloomberg Intelligence Finds

Property taxes have been the default villain for American homeowners for generations. In most of the country, the insurance bill has now passed them.

A Bloomberg Intelligence analysis released Monday found that the average homeowners premium exceeds the average property-tax bill in roughly two-thirds of U.S. counties. Add the portion of auto premiums tied to extreme weather, which the analysts estimated, and the combined cost tops property taxes in 75% of counties.

The numbers

County-level homeowners premiums are up 45% over the past decade after adjusting for inflation, according to the analysis. Nebraska led with a 79% jump.

On average, homeowners pay 14% more for insurance than for property tax. Including weather-linked auto coverage, the gap widens to 30%, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Andrew John Stevenson. The study drew on U.S. Census data, state insurance regulators, and federal weather and transportation agencies.

The burden is not evenly spread. In the Southeast, where property taxes are among the lowest in the country, premiums can run 2.5 to 4 times the local tax bill. In the Northeast, the West and large metro areas, taxes are already high, so rising premiums make up a smaller share.

Hail and severe winter weather are pushing rates up across the Midwest and Mountain West, with Colorado, Utah and Minnesota singled out. The same hail patterns are lifting auto premiums in the Great Plains and Upper Midwest.

What is driving it

The Bloomberg Intelligence report ties the increases in part to more severe weather linked to climate change. Climate Central, a research nonprofit, puts the five-year average of U.S. disaster losses in 2025 at $156 billion, ten times the 1985 figure when adjusted for inflation.

Weather is not the only factor cited. Rising home values and higher repair costs are also named as reasons for the increases.

Insurance is also not optional for most homeowners, especially those with mortgages, so they cannot simply cut it from the budget the way they might other spending.

The premium also understates what a claim costs. Alexandra Glickman, global practice leader for real estate and hospitality at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., said insurance is becoming less affordable even as it becomes more essential. Rising deductibles mean families pay more out of pocket after a hailstorm or winter storm before coverage kicks in. "You can't necessarily stop Mother Nature," she said, but "you can make it home" with the right precautions.

A second bill from disaster recovery

The insurance squeeze is landing as the Trump administration moves more disaster-recovery costs onto states and localities. Washington has covered about 90% of recovery spending over the past two decades. The split is now approaching 50-50.

Stevenson offered two examples. After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Texas received $23 billion in federal funds against $4 billion from local sources. After the January 2025 Los Angeles fires, Washington gave California $2.6 billion while Californians spent $3.5 billion.

Stevenson called the shift "a very daunting proposal for local government, local budgets, because they just don't have that kind of capital on hand to deploy on a kind of ad hoc basis." Local governments, he said, "would like to spend that on improving local infrastructure, period, not replacing local infrastructure."

A different yardstick

Not every dataset shows the same picture. A Zillow and Thumbtack analysis of 30 large metros found the typical homeowner pays $16,566 a year beyond the mortgage, up 32% over five years. That total breaks down as $11,171 for maintenance, $3,129 for property taxes and $2,266 for insurance.

In that analysis, insurance is the smallest of the three costs for the typical owner. It is also the fastest growing, up 54% over five years against 32% for maintenance and 19% for property taxes.

Only four of the 30 metros, Houston, Phoenix, Denver and Nashville, have homeowners paying more each year for insurance than for property taxes. Premiums are up at least 50% over five years in 19 metros, led by Dallas at 75%, Tampa at 71%, Denver at 70% and Houston at 69%. Miami homeowners pay the most, at nearly $5,000 a year.

The two studies measure different things. Bloomberg Intelligence averages across counties nationwide, while Zillow estimates annual property tax and insurance costs for a typical homeowner in each of 30 large metros. Kiplinger, citing Federal Reserve data, put the national increase in home insurance premiums at nearly 37% over a decade, a different measure from Bloomberg's inflation-adjusted county figure. Insurify puts the average national premium at $2,808 a year in October.

Signs of a slowdown

Zillow's analysis points to some relief. Overall ownership costs rose just 3% over the past year. Zillow suggests insurance may slow next, citing federal data showing premiums rose 0.3% between February and June 2026.

Premiums still sit well above where they were five years ago. A flat stretch does not roll back a decade of increases.

The Bloomberg Intelligence findings land in the middle of the affordability fight ahead of next month's midterm elections. Whether states and cities can absorb a bigger share of recovery bills without strain on local budgets, and whether the recent slowdown in premium growth holds, are the open questions.