At a glance
Homeowners insurance. If you have a mortgage, your lender requires you to have a policy. The price of those policies varies depending on a number of factors. In recent years, costs in San Diego county and across California have been on the rise. The insurance industry says that’s primarily because of wildfire risk.
Sticker Shock
An insurance industry trade group says premiums for homeowners insurance rose 41% between 2020 and 2024. The latest insurance pricing analysis from Policygenius average finds the average annual home insurance premium in San Diego is $1,333 per year for $300,000 in dwelling coverage.
Some of the sticker shock when it comes to homeowners insurance in San Diego County and across the state is due to a number of insurance companies refusing to renew policies and pausing new applications to limit their losses following devastating losses from wildfires, most recently in January of 2025 with the Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles county.
The Breakdown
A variety of factors go into the high cost of homeowners insurance in San Diego county. High wildfire risks, insurers cutting coverage to reduce losses, and inflationary pressure on repair costs all figure in. Another big issue in this county is an increase in "very high fire hazard" zone designations.
Carmen Balber of the nonprofit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said insurance companies are pushing all of the costs of increased weather disasters onto consumers in the form of higher premiums, lower benefits, and then reduced payouts if you actually do suffer a fire. But Janet Ruiz of the Insurance Information Institute (III), an industry trade group, said post-disaster labor and supply shortages are largely behind rising premiums. Ruiz also pointed to tariffs, specifically on lumber from Canada — the source of much of the lumber used in building and rebuilding homes in this state.
By The Numbers
Ruiz said in 2020, the average annual cost of a homeowners insurance premium in California was $1,241, while the rest of the country paid an average of $1,311 per year. In 2024, Ruiz said, California's annual average cost had risen to $1,750 compared to the national average of $1,800.
Both Ruiz and Balber advised consumers to shop around. Rates can vary widely from company to company. They both also said homeowners should take whatever mitigating measures they can, like using fire resistant materials in outdoor, exposed spaces, and clearing defensible space around your home.
Ruiz advised talking to a broker who represents more than one company, and also getting advice from family and friends. A search of prices on the internet revealed AAA as a low-cost provider, averaging around $88/month ($1,056/year), while Nationwide ($1,236/year) and State Farm ($1,320/year) are also competitive.
What’s Next?
Both Ruiz and Balber said the situation with homeowners insurance could improve this year, but for very different reasons. Ruiz said since January, more companies have been writing more policies in California because, she said, the state has allowed them to charge what she called "correct" premiums. She said we are likely to see a slow transition toward improved market stability by mid-2026. New state regulations allow insurers to use forward-looking catastrophe modeling to set rates, which may encourage providers to return to the market in exchange for raising premiums.
Balber pointed to legislation Consumer Watchdog is sponsoring this year with a group of wildfire survivors called the Every Fire Survivors Network. She said the bill would require insurance companies to cover you if you meet state fire safety guidelines.
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