Homeowners Insurance Quote: What It Says About the Address

Suppose the annual premium on a quote for a house in Lubbock County, Texas, comes back within $150 of the quote for a similar house in Travis County. On a comparison sheet the two rows look identical. Then you read the second page. One carries a 1 percent wind and hail deductible, the other 2 percent, on dwelling limits around $430,000. That gap is roughly $4,300 the first time hail comes through, and it is not printed anywhere near the premium.

Whether hail comes through is a question with a public answer. The Texas Department of Insurance publishes paid homeowners losses by county and peril. In Lubbock County, wind losses paid per policy were $296 in 2022, $2,116 in 2023, $834 in 2024 and $6,013 in 2025. In Travis County the same figure stayed between $194 and $1,492 every year from 2019 through 2025. A premium spreads that history into one smooth annual figure. A percentage deductible does the opposite: it is paid in full in the year the column spikes.

That is the case for requesting quotes on real addresses before you choose between towns, and for reading everything on the quote except the price first. Whether carriers are still writing in a ZIP code at all is a separate question, answered from rate filings and residual-market counts. This piece starts after that: a carrier will quote the address, so what does the quote itself say?

Request the quote so the two towns are actually comparable

Quotes built from different inputs cannot be compared, so fix one profile for every address before contacting anyone:

• Coverage A (dwelling). This should be the estimated cost to rebuild, not the list price. The NAIC's consumer guide points out that market value includes the land, which the policy does not cover.
• Base deductible. Pick one, say $1,000, and ask for it everywhere.
• Policy form. Ask for the HO-3 or the state's equivalent special form at every address, so you are not comparing one carrier's open-perils policy against another's named-perils one.
• The house facts. Year built, roof covering and roof year, construction type, square footage. Get these from the listing and the county assessor's record. If the two disagree, use the assessor's.
• Your own claims history. It goes into every quote, so give the same answer each time.

Then ask for more than the premium: each coverage limit, every deductible as a percentage and in dollars, the endorsements included and offered, and whatever the quote is "subject to." Online forms rarely show all of it; an agent can send a proposal or sample declarations page.

Of the questions the NAIC guide suggests asking, two matter most before the house is yours: "How can I find out the claims history of the home before I buy it?" and "What types of water damage are not covered?" On the first, most insurers report homeowners claims to nationwide databases such as CLUE, the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, according to the NAIC. The Fair Credit Reporting Act treats a company that compiles insurance claims files nationwide as a nationwide specialty consumer reporting agency and requires it to provide your own file on request. A file on the house belongs to its owner, so ask the seller's side for it.

The form behind the price

The quote prices a contract whose standard version is public. The Maine Bureau of Insurance posts the ISO HO 00 03 05 11 Homeowners 3 – Special Form (24 pages, read 1 November 2026). Carriers file their own versions and edition dates differ, so treat it as the reference text and compare against the form number printed on your quote.

These are the parts of a quote that trace back to a clause in the form, and the reason each one moves with the town:

The 80 percent condition is the line most likely to bite someone who copies a Coverage A figure from one town into another. Under Condition D.2.b, if the dwelling limit is below 80 percent of full replacement cost at the time of loss, the insurer pays the greater of actual cash value or a proportion of the repair cost. Say the house would cost $400,000 to rebuild and is insured for $300,000. The insurer compares $300,000 with 80 percent of $400,000, which is $320,000. On a $40,000 repair, that ratio pays $37,500 before the deductible. A town where builders charge more per square foot pushes you below the line faster.

Ordinance or law coverage tracks the local building code most directly: 10 percent of a $400,000 Coverage A is $40,000 toward rebuilding to current code. Florida handles it by statute. Section 627.7011, Florida Statutes requires insurers to offer law and ordinance coverage limited to 25 or 50 percent of the dwelling limit. A policy is deemed to include the 25 percent version unless the policyholder rejects it in writing on an approved form. A Florida quote showing 10 percent should prompt a question.

The separate deductible is the location signal

The base form handles deductibles in one short paragraph. The insurer pays only the part of the loss that exceeds the deductible on the declarations, and "If two or more deductibles under this policy apply to the loss, only the highest deductible amount will apply." The signal is in the endorsements that add a second, larger deductible for one peril: which peril gets it shows what the carrier expects to pay for at that address.

Florida, hurricanes. Section 627.701 requires insurers, before issuing a personal lines residential policy, to "offer alternative deductible amounts applicable to hurricane losses equal to $500, 2 percent, 5 percent, and 10 percent of the policy dwelling limits." Several details are useful when you are comparing towns:

• At dwelling limits of $250,000 or more, the insurer does not have to offer the $500 option. From $1 million up to $3 million it may offer 3 percent instead of 2. At $3 million or more it does not have to offer 2 percent at all.
• The offer notice must state which hurricane deductible applies if you do not choose one. That default is worth finding on the quote.
• A policy with a separate hurricane deductible must carry, in boldface no smaller than 18 points: "THIS POLICY CONTAINS A SEPARATE DEDUCTIBLE FOR HURRICANE LOSSES, WHICH MAY RESULT IN HIGH OUT-OF-POCKET EXPENSES TO YOU."
• Under subsection (5), the hurricane deductible applies once per calendar year across all hurricane losses under policies from the same insurer or insurer group. It does not reset with each storm.
• Subsection (10) allows a separate roof deductible capped at the lesser of 2 percent of Coverage A or 50 percent of the roof replacement cost. It must come with a premium credit.

On a $350,000 Florida dwelling limit, the three required percentage options work out to $7,000, $17,500 or $35,000. Under paragraph (3)(d)1 the $500 option need not be offered, because the limit is $250,000 or more. If a quote in one Florida town defaults to 2 percent and a quote in another defaults to 5 percent, the carrier is telling you something about the second town.

Texas, wind and hail. Texas publishes data on how often the percentage comes into play. The TDI's homeowners market overview shows average coverage rising from $287,900 in 2019 to $432,800 in 2025 (preliminary). Since a percentage deductible scales with coverage, the same 2 percent on that average limit grew from $5,758 to $8,656 over those years even if the percentage itself never changed. The losses by county page, last updated 22 June 2026, offers a CSV download. The two counties from the opening read like this:

These are county-wide averages, not one house's claim: Lubbock's 2025 wind figure is $380,144,444 in paid losses divided across 63,223 policies, including every policy that filed nothing. What matters for a wind and hail deductible is how often the column jumps: four of the last seven years in Lubbock County exceeded $2,000 per policy. TDI's own notes say the figures exclude renters, condo and dwelling policies, along with wind and hail paid by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association in the 14 coastal counties and part of Harris County. On the coast, the wind portion may come from a different insurer entirely.

Wildfire, California. California handles this differently. A wildfire surcharge goes on the premium instead of a separate deductible, and the regulation requires the insurer to tell you the score behind it. Under California Code of Regulations, title 10, section 2644.9, subdivision (h), as quoted in the California Department of Insurance's 2026 notice to insurers, an insurer that uses a wildfire risk model or rating factor to segment, set a rate differential or surcharge the premium must give the applicant the score or classification in writing "No later than fifteen (15) days following the submission to the insurer of the applicant's completed application." Subdivision (i) gives you a right to appeal it. Between two California towns, that score is often the most informative thing an application produces, so ask for it and for what mitigation would change.

The deductible structure connects back to the map. A Florida hurricane deductible and a Texas wind deductible cover wind, while the base form excludes flood and storm surge in both states. The flood zone lookup for the same parcel covers what the wind deductible does not.

Exclusions describe the ground, not the house

HO-3 exclusions read the same everywhere. What changes by town is how often each one comes up, and whether the carrier sells an endorsement for it there.

The water exclusion, A.3, removes "Flood, surface water, waves, including tidal wave and tsunami, tides, tidal water, overflow of any body of water, or spray from any of these, all whether or not driven by wind, including storm surge". It also removes water that "Backs up through sewers or drains" or overflows from a sump, and water below the ground surface that "seeps, leaks or flows through" a foundation. The earth movement exclusion, A.2, removes earthquake, "Landslide, mudslide or mudflow," and "Subsidence or sinkhole." In both cases, fire, explosion or theft that results is still covered.

So per address, ask about availability, not price:

1. Is a water backup and sump overflow endorsement offered here, and at what limit? Some carriers cap it well below the dwelling limit, so get the figure.
2. Is earthquake coverage offered here, by endorsement or as a separate policy, and with what percentage deductible?
3. In a karst area, is sinkhole coverage included, offered, or declined? The base form's earth movement exclusion names it.
4. Does mold coverage go beyond the base form? The base form only covers mold hidden inside walls, ceilings or floors that results from an accidental discharge from a plumbing, heating, air conditioning or sprinkler system, a household appliance, or certain pipes off the premises.

An endorsement refused here but sold two ZIP codes over belongs on your comparison sheet.

Conditions that start before you move in

A quote "subject to inspection" or "subject to underwriting review" can still change, and several conditions hit people relocating harder than people staying put.

The 60-day window. Under the HO-3's cancellation condition, a new policy "in effect for less than 60 days" that "is not a renewal with us" can be cancelled for any reason with at least 10 days' written notice. After 60 days, apart from non-payment, the insurer may cancel only for a material misrepresentation or a substantial change in the risk, with 30 days' notice. So a bound policy is not settled for about two months, which is when a post-binding inspection finds the roof older than the listing said.

Vacancy. This catches anyone who closes and moves in months later. The base form drops coverage for vandalism and malicious mischief, and for glass breakage, if "the dwelling has been vacant for more than 60 consecutive days immediately before the loss." Give the agent your move-in date with the quote request and ask what the carrier requires past 60 days.

Roof age. Roof age often decides whether a carrier will write the house at all. Florida limits how insurers can use it. Under section 627.7011(5), an insurer "may not refuse to issue or refuse to renew a homeowner's policy insuring a residential structure with a roof that is less than 15 years old solely because of the age of the roof." For an older roof, an authorized inspection showing at least 5 years of useful life left has the same effect. Age runs from the last time the whole roof surface was built or replaced to code. In any state, take the roof year from the permit record rather than the listing, since the quote is priced on the year you supply.

Claims history and credit. The NAIC guide counts the claims history of the home and of homes in your area, plus your credit history, among premium factors. The area's history is the one you cannot change, which is why it belongs in a town comparison.

Check the quote against the state's own tables

One quote alone has no baseline. State departments publish figures that show whether it is ordinary for the area.

Texas. HelpInsure.com is run jointly by TDI and the Office of Public Insurance Counsel. TDI's June announcement says it "lets you compare sample rates and policies and learn a company's financial rating and complaint index." The site itself warns that results "are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for a final quoted rate or actual policy language." The market overview page adds a county map of average annual premiums from 2019 to 2025, and a separate "Average annual premium" chart puts the statewide homeowners average at $1,961 in 2019 and $3,489 in 2025, with 2025 marked preliminary. TDI's rate filings search shows whether the quoting company has filed a rate change recently.

California. The CDI's Homeowners Insurance Comparison Tool (2026 edition) prices fixed hypothetical profiles by city or county: coverage from $250,000 to $1,000,000, deductibles from $500 to $5,000, home age from new to 70 years. Use the same profile code in both towns. The tool warns that wildfire surcharges "can range from 15% to over 300% depending on a home's vulnerability to the risk of wildfire and are not reflected in the premiums shown here," so a foothill quote far above its figure usually points back to the wildfire score.

Elsewhere. The NAIC guide points to complaint index pages on state department websites, and many departments also publish a premium comparison guide. Where none exists, get a second quote at a similar address in the same county.

Putting a quote on the comparison sheet

Convert everything to dollars first, so a percentage never sits beside a flat figure. Per address, record the premium, the base deductible, the separate peril deductible multiplied out against Coverage A, the endorsements offered but not included (with price), any peril the carrier will not offer there, and open conditions such as a pending inspection or a wildfire score.

Then keep two rows. The ordinary year is the premium. The bad year adds the largest deductible that could plausibly apply, plus a flood premium if the parcel needs one. On the Florida example, a 5 percent hurricane deductible puts $17,500 into that row before any excluded loss. Two towns can tie on the first row and sit a full year of property tax apart on the second.

Insurance is one of the seven annual figures that decide a move, and the only one that arrives as a range. Ask for the deductible in dollars and the endorsement list before you ask the price.

Sources, read or queried 1 November 2026: ISO HO 00 03 05 11 Homeowners 3 – Special Form as posted by the Maine Bureau of Insurance; Florida Statutes section 627.701 and section 627.7011 on the Florida Legislature's site; the Texas Department of Insurance homeowners market overview, homeowners losses by county with its CSV file, and the 22 June 2026 announcement of both pages; HelpInsure.com; the California Department of Insurance Homeowners Insurance Comparison Tool, its profile definitions, and its 2026 notice on residential property insurance laws quoting 10 CCR 2644.9; the NAIC's A Consumer's Guide to Home Insurance (2022); and 15 U.S.C. 1681a and 1681j.