Texas homeowners are getting ripped off as insurers hike premiums and deny claims, even as they post record profits. Texas’ home insurance costs have climbed nearly 56% since 2020, and Insurify projects the state will see another rate increase in 2026, on top of an average annual premium that has already reached $4,380. Recent analysis by Insurify found Texans faced one of the largest premium increases in the first half of 2026 in the nation, jumping some 4.1% and adding $180 to homeowners bills on average.
The homeowners’ insurance crisis in Texas, where nearly 18% of homeowners have no coverage, is disrupting the state’s housing market. A recent study by Rice University found that rising insurance costs have expanded the housing affordability gap, with roughly 64% of households unable to afford the median-priced home in their county. Housing and home insurance affordability are among the top issues for voters.
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. The July 2025 Texas Hill Country flash floods killed more than 130 people and caused as much as $22 billion in damage, yet the National Flood Insurance Program paid out just $135 million in claims because so few Texans carry flood coverage. Despite catastrophic losses like these, property and casualty insurers remained enormously profitable nationally, yet nearly half of all claims filed by Texas homeowners in 2024 were closed without any payment, leaving families to absorb the cost of disaster themselves.
Meanwhile, Americans and Texans are facing the largest climate-denial risk shift under the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, which, combined with Trump’s tariff-driven inflation, is pushing home insurance premiums even higher. The costly climate change risk shift is driving the homeowners’ insurance crisis sweeping the nation, but it’s particularly harmful for Texans where at least 7.8 million homes are facing elevated hail risks. In 2025, hail damage alone caused more than $3 million in damages in Texas.
Texans Are Paying More, Getting Less While Home Insurers Profit
Fact: Texas is now the third most expensive state for home insurance in the country, with costs nearly double the national average for a $300,000 home, and roughly one in three low-income Texas homeowners can no longer afford coverage at all.
Fact: Home insurance is the largest share of housing costs, now comprising 14.4% of a household budget, averaging $331 per month in the state.
Fact: In 2024, nearly half of all claims filed with Texas home insurers were closed without any payment to the homeowner, with ten companies denying more than half of their claims and two denying more than 60%.
Fact: Higher prices and inflation is one of the state’s top issues, with housing prices skyrocketing by 44% over the last decade and insurance premiums jumping nearly 56% since 2020.
Fact: Property and casualty insurers made an unprecedented $405 billion in profit over the last three years nationally, even as they raised prices for Texas families.
Fact: 15 of the 50 counties with the highest uninsured rate in the country are located in Texas.
Fact: A 2017 Texas law that made it harder to sue insurers over wrongfully denied claims corresponded with a 10 percentage point spike in unpaid claims within a single year.
Fact: The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the state’s insurer of last resort along the Gulf Coast, expected to hold nearly 300,000 policies by the end of 2025, the most in its history, as private insurers push homeowners out of the market they claim they can no longer afford to serve.
Fact: Texas has a file-and-use regulatory structure that allows insurers to raise rates without review nor approval.
Fact: Texas has the second highest unregulated surplus line premium volume in the nation, comprising 16% of the entire market share last year and up from 2024.
Fact: Insurers have poured over $7.8 million into Texas state Republicans’ campaign accounts while blocking home-hardening legislation that could cut hail and wind premiums by up to 55%.
Republicans Are Making Texas’s Crisis Worse
Every Texas Republican member of Congress voted for Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which repealed funding for NOAA’s atmospheric research and weather forecasting programs, the very tools Texans depend on ahead of hurricane season and during flash flood emergencies like the one that devastated Kerr County. The Trump administration proposed stripping another 40% of funding from the office in its 2027 budget.
The Trump administration also withheld $11 billion in FEMA disaster reimbursements owed to 45 states, and Rep. Monica De La Cruz, who represents McAllen homeowners facing one of the nation’s worst uninsured home crises, has continued to prioritize insurance industry profits over her constituents. Tariffs on construction materials are also projected to add hundreds of dollars to the average Texan’s insurance bill.
Solutions Exist to Lower Costs and Protect Texas Homeowners
Rep. De La Cruz 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;
- Require transparency and regulate 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, Texas residents should expect their federal lawmakers to hold hearings on insurers’ pattern of delay, deny, and defend practices harming policyholders.
Congress needs to 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 already owed to states, and hold hearings on insurers’ pattern of delay, deny, and defend practices. In Texas, lawmakers should revive rate oversight legislation, like SB 1643, to require rate increase justification and get approval, repeal or reform the 2017 law that gutted homeowners’ ability to challenge wrongful denials, and mandate the kind of resilient-construction discounts that have stabilized markets in states like Alabama.
Unlocking America’s Future released a comprehensive report detailing Texas’s home insurance crisis in December 2025, and Texas’s congressional Republicans have still failed to act. Oklahoma is taking insurers to court over the industry’s fraudulent practices, and a coalition of congressional Democrats has launched an investigation into insurers’ use of credit scores. Numerous solutions exist to help lower risks and costs for Texas 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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