WACO, Texas (KXXV) \u2014 Waco homeowners are opening renewal notices and seeing significant increases in their home insurance premiums \u2014 and experts say the reasons are all around us.<\/p>\n
Watch the full story here:<\/p>\n
Home insurance costs are rising across Texas \u2014 here’s what Waco families can do about it<\/p>\n
Mike Garibay has lived in Waco and been a homeowner for 47 years. He said his home insurance rates were steady until a few years ago.<\/p>\n
“It seemed like about three or four years ago that it just started rising, quickly, higher. I mean, now it’s just to be expected, five to 10% increase, yearly,” Garibay said.<\/p>\n
According to the Texas Department of Insurance, homeowners’ rates climbed nearly 19% in 2024, following a more than 21% spike in 2023. Texans now pay some of the highest home insurance costs in the country.<\/p>\n
Insurance experts say Texas faces a unique combination of home risks. <\/p>\n
Jordan Carey, owner of Baker and Carey Home Insurance Agency, pointed to severe weather as the primary driver.<\/p>\n
“So the primary components that are leading to the increased prices for homeowners insurance are going to be the frequency and intensity of the hailstorms that we’ve had in the last 6 to 8 years. So that is the biggest reason,” Carey said.<\/p>\n
When billions of dollars in claims are paid out statewide, insurers raise rates to offset those losses.<\/p>\n
Garibay said he understands the situation.<\/p>\n
“But you know it’s not their fault,” Garibay said.<\/p>\n
Still, for homeowners watching their budgets, there are options. Garibay said he has started shopping around for better rates.<\/p>\n
Carey agreed that now may be a good time to explore alternatives.<\/p>\n
“Absolutely shop around as I mentioned, um, it seems like we’re in a good place for the first time in quite some time in regards to um the buyer and uh the homeowners insure uh insurer, um, having some options,” Carey said.<\/p>\n
Texas lawmakers continue to look for ways to address rising premiums, but for now, experts say shopping around and comparing coverage may be your best defense.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WACO, Texas (KXXV) \u2014 Waco homeowners are opening renewal notices and seeing significant increases in their home insurance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2042,71064,819,2047,2048,27,29,71065,28,7145],"class_list":{"0":"post-176569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-25-news","9":"tag-home-insurance","10":"tag-in-your-neighborhood","11":"tag-kxxv","12":"tag-local-news-in-my-area","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-texas-headlines","15":"tag-texas-home-insurance","16":"tag-texas-news","17":"tag-waco"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}