If you own a home and your renewal notice showed up with another increase, you’re in the large majority. Only 11.7% of homeowners renewing a policy in the first half of 2026 got a price cut, according to a report published this week by Matic. Everyone else paid more.
The size of that increase is what changed.
The average renewal increase was 10.6%. Last year it was 19.4%. In 2024 it was 28%. Premiums on newly written policies rose 5.9% year over year, down from 8.1% in 2025 and 18.7% in 2024. And the share of shoppers getting real competition jumped: the average person is now pulling 27% more quotes than in 2025 and 74% more than at the 2024 low.
Carriers spent three years doing two things. Raising prices, and refusing to write anything that looked like risk. Ben Madick, Matic’s CEO and co-founder, says that is easing: carriers “are now loosening those restrictions and competing for customers again.”
Matic is a home insurance marketplace. It makes money when you shop. Note that, then read the numbers as they are rather than as the headline frames them. “Market turns a corner” is generous for a year in which roughly 88% of renewals still went up. A slower increase is still an increase, and nobody is mailing you a refund.
One thing did change for the better: the number of carriers willing to quote you at all. That was the piece missing in 2023 and 2024, when shopping meant three declines and a shrug.
The line item that ate your escrow
Home insurance now runs about 14% of the average monthly mortgage payment, up from roughly 10% in 2013. That’s the quiet reason your payment moved while your interest rate sat still. Escrow collects taxes and insurance along with principal and interest, so a premium increase lands on your monthly bill whether or not you ever opened the renewal letter.
Verdict: worth shopping. Not because prices are falling. Because more than one company will finally answer.
Do this before your renewal date
Pull your declarations page first. You need four numbers off it: dwelling coverage, personal property, liability, and your deductible. Every quote you collect has to match all four or you’re comparing nothing.
Get three quotes, and make one of them an independent agent who writes for multiple carriers. Regional carriers came back into markets before the national brands did, and they don’t show up in a search box.
Ask each quote what a $2,500 deductible does versus $1,000. In a year when the average renewal still climbed double digits, deductible choice is often the biggest lever you actually control.
Then check your escrow statement. If you switch and the premium drops, call your servicer and ask for an escrow re-analysis instead of waiting a year for the automatic one. Our mortgage calculator will show you how the insurance line moves the total payment, and the mortgages hub has the rest of the escrow mechanics.
How Candid Yak makes money. Some of the products we write about pay us if you apply or sign up through our links. That never changes our verdict, our rankings, or the numbers in this article. We call a bad deal a bad deal whether it pays us or not. Some brands shown in our comparison tools are placeholder examples while we finalize partner agreements, and we label them as such.