North Carolina Homeowners Paying More For Less As Insurers Avoid Accountability For Delays And Denials
NORTH CAROLINA – Today, Unlocking America’s Future (UAF) released a new report titled “North Carolina’s Insurance Crisis: How Homeowners Pay More While Insurers And The Trump Administration Abandon Them After Disasters” on the state’s insurance crisis and was joined by State Senator Natalie Murdock, Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers, disaster survivor homeowner Bob Tatum, and Gavin Magor from Weiss Ratings to discuss the escalating home insurance crisis in North Carolina.
Speakers discussed (full recording available here) how lax oversight, anti-consumer measures, and limited policyholder protections have become a mechanism for insurance corporations to extract wealth from homeowners while providing less coverage and abandoning policyholders in North Carolina. Weiss Ratings’ analysis of North Carolina’s home insurance market is available here.
“During Helene, we lost our home where we had lived for 46 years. Like most people, I did what I was supposed to do. I paid my insurance premiums year after year. We trusted my insurance agent and the insurer,” said extreme weather survivor homeowner Bob Tatum. “I spent money out of my own pocket on independent experts and analysis. They confirmed what was obvious from the beginning: the damage was caused by wind and hail. Even with that proof, my claim was still denied. That’s a license to steal. Deny, delay, deny, delay. That’s the way they work, and it’s a joke.”
“My mom lives in Guilford County. She is a senior on a fixed income. And just last year, she was kicked off of her insurance policy. She still doesn’t really know why. She only filed one claim. We have seen here in North Carolina, upwards of 10,000 people were rejected by Nationwide,” said State Senator Natalie Murdock. “We’ve seen home insurance premiums skyrocket over 38%. This is not sustainable. As a legislator, I am committed to figuring out how we can do a better job. The first thing we need to revisit in the state legislature is the consent to rate law, where policyholders unknowingly consent to massive rate hikes by insurers because it’s buried in the fine print. We also want more options and more competition. That can also help to keep costs low and give homeowners more options.”
“Other than the words, I love you, the most important word in the English language is home. We’ve all had one, where many are still looking for one, and it’s not simply a word. It’s a place where you feel secure, you feel comfortable, it’s where you grieve, it’s where you celebrate, it’s where you send your kids off to school,” said Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers. “When you look at the affordability crisis, which is not just sweeping over our state, but the country. It really is putting people’s ability to keep calling the place they call home, home. And what you see at this insurance rise across the state, time and time again, is insurance companies starting with a no before they have to say yes. As a mayor, I’m focused on helping people, and we know resiliency works with every dollar spent can result in six up to thirteen dollars saved, which helps drive these insurance costs down. We encourage FEMA to continue to realize and prioritize that money spent on resiliency is money well spent.”
“Home insurance premiums in North Carolina have skyrocketed over the past few years as insurance companies desert families, leaving them to rely on federal relief which in turn has been slashed by the Trump administration,” said Kyle Herrig, spokesperson for Unlocking America’s Future. “Worse, insurers are seeking a whopping 68% rate increase on top of the 16 other rate increases that have already been approved by North Carolina’s insurance commissioner. This is shaping up to be a perfect storm of unaffordable home insurance combined with little to no assistance from FEMA and the federal government to build resilience and recover.”
“The numbers tell the real story in North Carolina: Home insurance corporations have made billions, while denying homeowners’ claims and raising rates. While they claim underwriting losses from extreme weather events, the same insurance corporations have made nearly $100 billion since 2015,” said Weiss Ratings Director of Research & Ratings Gavin Magor. “Despite that reality, after Hurricane Helene, a whopping 30 percent of homeowners’ claims were closed with no payments. That means homeowners who paid their premiums for years did not receive one single cent from their insurance company to help them recover.”
The new UAF report reveals that those same companies are maximizing their profits at the expense of North Carolina homeowners and policyholders. Across the state, premiums have risen by 38% since 2019. All this while a deceptive state law allows them to charge rates 250% above regulatory maximums simply by treating payment as “consent.”
When Hurricane Helene devastated parts of North Carolina in 2024, insurance companies responded not by fulfilling their obligations to policyholders, but by closing about 30% of claims without payment and announcing plans to cancel thousands of additional policies.
Read the full UAF report here.
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