North Carolina homeowners are getting squeezed as insurers hike premiums and deny claims, even as they post record profits nationwide. The state’s rate bureau requested a 42% homeowners insurance hike last year, citing risky coastal development and “billions in storm damage from Hurricane Helene.” Regulators negotiated it down, but homeowners are still absorbing back-to-back 7.5% statewide increases in 2025 and 2026, with coastal counties like Brunswick, Carteret, New Hanover, Onslow, and Pender facing a combined 31.9% hike over the same two years.
Insurance companies are passing the costs and risks associated with climate change onto policyholders, while continuing to underwrite and invest in the same polluters responsible for the crisis. Hurricane Helene killed 107 people in North Carolina and accounted for $60 billion of the storm’s $80 billion in regional damage, yet only about 10% of that damage was covered by insurance. Despite the losses, insurers cited Helene to justify their largest rate hike request in years, even as one out of every four home insurance claims in Western North Carolina was closed without any payment to the homeowner. Roughly 7% of North Carolina homes are uninsured, leaving families one storm away from financial devastation.
North Carolinians Are Paying More, Getting Less While Home Insurers Profit
Fact: The national homeowners’ insurance crisis is severely impacting North Carolinians, particularly coastal areas most at risk from climate change.
Fact: Skyrocking insurance premiums are driving up total homeownership costs and undermining the housing market, with homeowners in nearly one-third of states paying more in monthly insurance premiums than property taxes, including in North Carolina where it comprises over 10% of monthly household costs.
Fact: Property and casualty insurers made an unprecedented $405 billion in profit over the last three years nationally, even as they raised prices for North Carolina families and pushed for laws to avoid paying claims.
Fact: After Hurricane Helene, one in four home insurance claims in Western North Carolina was closed without any payment, and statewide, roughly a third of all claims filed in 2024 received nothing at all.
Fact: The homeowners’ insurance crisis of paying more for less coverage as insurers maximize profits is disproportionately impacting Black homeowners, who pay hundreds more each year in insurance premiums.
Fact: Nonrenewal rates are back on the rise after the 2018 spike, weakening the state’s housing market and worsening an existing Black and minority home value gap. Just one insurer, Nationwide, dropped over 10,000 policies in North Carolina.
Fact: A 2018 state law backed by the insurance industry lets insurers charge policyholders above state-mandated rate maximums and treat payment of a renewal bill as “consent.” Since it passed, the share of North Carolina homeowners paying these excessive rates has grown from 41% to 55% of policyholders.
Fact: North Carolina’s home insurance non-renewal rate has climbed from under 1% before the crisis to 2.43% statewide, with thirteen inland counties ranking among the nation’s top 100 for non-renewals.
Fact: Along the coast, private insurers abandoned so many policyholders that the state’s insurer of last resort climbed to a 64% market share in coastal areas, a level of dependence the program was never designed to carry.
Fact: The homeowners’ insurance loss ratio for North Carolina’s top 10 insurers was 72.9% in 2024. Home insurers went on to request a massive statewide rate hike of nearly 69% over two years despite amassing nearly $100 million in profits from policyholders since 2015.
Fact: Trump’s tariff taxes are driving up rebuilding costs and insurance premiums.
Congressional Republicans Are Making North Carolina’s Crisis Worse
North Carolina Republican Representative Greg Murphy (NC-3) has repeatedly voted against disaster preparedness and climate action while accepting almost $30,000 in campaign donations from the property insurance and oil and gas industries. Rep. Murphy represents the coast, where the insurer of last resort has ballooned to a 64% market share.
Rep. Murphy voted for a spending package that cut nearly $300 million from FEMA’s budget and helped create the conditions for the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, halting FEMA training and threatening to deplete its disaster relief fund. Murphy also voted to gut weather forecasting and NOAA funding. Murphy co-sponsored legislation to tax third-party litigation financing, which would limit consumers’ ability to hold insurers accountable through third-party litigation — a tool that helps low-income homeowners afford legal challenges. As state legislator, Rep. Murphy voted for and to override the governor’s veto of the 2018 law that lets insurers exceed rate maximums.
Worse, the homeowners’ insurance crisis hammering his constituents is not even one of Rep. Murphy’s congressional issues listed on his website.
Solutions Exist to Lower Costs and Protect North Carolina Homeowners
Rep. Murphy and the Republican-controlled Congress need to stop making this crisis worse for their constituents. They should:
- Put their constituents first and rein in egregious home insurance profits;
- Restore full funding to NOAA’s weather forecasting and research programs;
- Release the FEMA disaster reimbursements and mitigation grants already owed to states;
- Reinstate programs, like BRIC, that help communities prepare before storms hit;
- Fully fund and fix the National Flood Insurance Program;
- Prevent insurers from using credit scores in premium pricing;
- Hold polluters accountable for climate-driven risks and damage;
- Require insurers to provide full disclosure, including profit margins and investments, alongside rate hike requests;
- Regulate and require transparency for new home insurance surplus lines of insurance;
- Require more national data transparency to allow state lawmakers and regulators to address market inefficiencies and gaps across states; and
- Finally, at the very least, North Carolina residents should expect their federal lawmakers to hold hearings on insurers’ pattern of delay, deny, and defend practices harming policyholders.
The Republican-led Congress and Rep. Murphy must stop making this crisis worse for their constituents. They should restore full funding to NOAA’s weather forecasting and research programs, release the FEMA disaster reimbursements and mitigation grants already owed to states, and hold hearings on insurers’ pattern of delay, deny, and defend practices. In Raleigh, lawmakers should pass State Senator Natalie Murdock’s bill closing the consent-to-rate loophole that Murphy helped pass and bar insurers from using credit scores to set premiums.
Unlocking America’s Future released a full report on North Carolina’s crisis in May 2026, and Reps. Murphy has still failed to act. A coalition of congressional Democrats has launched an investigation into insurers’ use of credit scores, and Oklahoma is taking insurers to court over fraudulent practices. Numerous solutions exist to help lower risks and costs for North Carolina families if politicians and regulators choose to act.
For questions or to connect with an insurance expert, ratings analyst, policymaker, or impacted homeowner, please email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com.
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