Quiet Hurricane Season Eases Insurers' Costs, but Homeowners' Relief Lags

The Atlantic hurricane season enters its final four weeks with a single hurricane to its name, capping a stretch of light catastrophe losses that has left U.S. property insurers on firmer financial footing and is pushing down what they pay for their own protection. Reinsurers and analysts are cautioning, however, that a quiet year has not made coastal homes any less exposed, and homeowners' premiums are still rising, only more slowly than before.

For homebuyers, real estate agents and mortgage lenders, that gap matters. Insurance costs for the average mortgage holder have climbed steeply since 2020, according to ICE data, and the factors that set the premium on a specific address, including flood zone, wind and wildfire exposure, the age of the roof and which carriers are willing to write in the area, do not reset after one calm season.

The National Hurricane Center's season summary, updated Oct. 28, counted 10 named Atlantic storms, Insurance Business reported. Only one, Isaias, became a hurricane. It reached hurricane strength on Oct. 7, the latest date in 121 years for a season's first hurricane, according to NOAA data cited by CBS News. The season officially ends Nov. 30.

Isaias came ashore near Destin, Florida, on the evening of Oct. 9 with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, the National Weather Service office in Tallahassee said in its final post-storm report, making it a Category 2 storm at landfall. The same report recorded a peak water level of 5.6 feet above the typical high-tide line at the Panama City Beach pier, second there only to Hurricane Opal in 1995, and more than 12 inches of rain at DeFuniak Springs. Insurance Business reported that it was the first U.S. hurricane landfall since Milton in October 2024.

The lull was largely anticipated. In an Aug. 6 update, NOAA put the odds of a below-normal season at 75%, citing El Niño, whose upper-level winds tend to disrupt storms before they can organize or intensify. Insured-loss estimates for Isaias from catastrophe modelers ranged from $1 billion to $2 billion at Verisk to $2.5 billion to $4.5 billion at Moody's RMS, according to Insurance Business.

The broader loss picture has also been mild. Gallagher Re estimated in its third-quarter catastrophe report that global insured natural catastrophe losses totaled $92 billion in the first nine months of 2026, the lowest for that period since 2019 and 29% below the 10-year average, Insurance Journal reported. The United States accounted for 62% of that total, according to Artemis. Severe convective storms, which include hail, tornadoes and straight-line winds, made up nearly 60% of insured catastrophe losses worldwide and cost U.S. insurers at least $43 billion through the third quarter.

Insurer results reflect the reprieve. Travelers said on Oct. 16 that its third-quarter catastrophe losses, net of reinsurance, were $538 million before tax, up from $402 million a year earlier and driven mainly by wind and hail. Its personal insurance segment reported a combined ratio of 83.5%, meaning it spent about 83.5 cents on claims and expenses for each dollar of premium earned. Net written premiums in its homeowners and other business rose 1% to about $2.5 billion. Across the industry, AM Best reported that the U.S. homeowners line earned an underwriting profit of $16.5 billion in 2025, its first underwriting gain since 2019, with a combined ratio of 84.5, according to Insurance Journal. The rating agency said the pace of rate-increase filings slowed in the second half of 2025 and into 2026, and said insurers are "doing a much better job of matching rate to risk."

The cost of insurers' own backstop is falling as well. Fitch expects property catastrophe reinsurance rates to keep softening into 2027 unless a major loss intervenes, after U.S. loss-free business renewed at up to 25% lower in mid-2026, Reinsurance News reported. Analysts at KBW expect property catastrophe excess-of-loss rates to fall by at least 10% at the Jan. 1, 2027 renewals, a smaller cut than in the previous two renewal rounds. Moody's Ratings said reinsurance buyers expect property rates to decline 7.5% to 15% in 2027, Business Insurance reported.

Reinsurers are urging caution about reading too much into one year. Monica Ningen, chief executive of U.S. property and casualty reinsurance at Swiss Re, said some in the market "forget that the risk hasn't changed," according to Insurance Business. Swiss Re estimates that global insured natural catastrophe losses are growing 5% to 7% a year in real terms. Gallagher Re's chief science officer, Steve Bowen, said that "catastrophe activity and catastrophe losses are not necessarily the same thing," Artemis reported.

For households, the relief so far is a slowdown rather than a reversal. The average single-family mortgage holder pays $209 a month for property insurance, nearly 80% more than at the start of 2020, according to ICE's September Mortgage Monitor. Costs rose 8.7% from a year earlier, ICE said, down from a peak of 15.1% at the end of 2024, and the 1.8% second-quarter increase was the smallest since ICE began tracking the measure. Andy Walden, ICE's head of mortgage and housing market research, said the data show "the pace of increase is finally slowing."

The burden varies widely by market. ICE found that insurance made up 24.3% of the average mortgage payment in New Orleans and 4.3% in San Jose, and that homeowners who switched private carriers saw premiums fall 6.6% on average while those who stayed saw a 10.4% increase. A Government Accountability Office report released in March found that average premiums rose about 27% from 2019 to 2024, or about 3% after inflation, and that homes in areas with severe or extreme wind risk paid about 58% more than similar homes in areas with major wind risk. The combined market share of state FAIR and beach plans, the insurers of last resort, rose from about 1.4% in 2019 to about 2.5% in 2023, the GAO said.

Several dates will shape what buyers pay next. The hurricane season runs through Nov. 30. Many reinsurance contracts renew on Jan. 1, the next test of how far reinsurance prices fall. The National Flood Insurance Program's authority is set to expire at midnight on Dec. 12, Insurance Journal reported. During the 43-day government shutdown last year, no new federal flood policies were sold or renewed, according to the same report, and the National Association of Realtors says flood insurance is required for a mortgage in more than 20,000 communities.

In CoverGuard's view, cheaper reinsurance and healthier insurer balance sheets are good news for the market, but they say little about the premium on any one house. A quiet season can ease rate filings at the margin. It does not change a property's flood zone, its distance from the coast or its wildfire exposure, and those are the factors that help decide whether a home can be insured on standard terms and at what cost.

This is the workflow CoverGuard is built for. Enter any US address to see flood, fire, wind, earthquake and crime risk for that property, along with modeled carrier availability for its state market, before you bid. When it is time to move, you can request a quote from our brokerage team. Carrier availability is modeled rather than confirmed, and a quote request is not a guarantee of coverage or price until a carrier confirms it.