Best Homeowners Insurance for Older Homes of 2024 (2024)

After in-depth research, we found the following to be the best insurance providers for homeowners with older homes:

• Liberty Mutual: Our pick for discounts
• Allstate: Our pick for extended coverage
• Progressive: Our pick for bundling
• Farmers: Our pick for customizable coverage
• American Family: Our pick for online resources
• Travelers: Our pick for deductible savings

*A.M. Best ratings accurate as of April 2024

Homeowners insurance premiums can vary depending on various rating factors companies use to determine risks, such as your credit-based insurance score and the home’s exact location and size.

But insurers add a few additional elements for older homes, such as the following:

• Building materials: Older homes often have materials that aren’t readily available or affordable anymore, which can cause your rates to be higher than a new home. For instance, plaster walls are significantly more expensive than drywall, now the most common wall material. Replacing damaged plaster walls can cost the insurer more than the drywall found in newer houses.
• Systems: Many older homes have old systems, such as plumbing, HVAC and electrical wiring, which can have a significant impact on pricing. Older wiring systems that don’t use copper can be at a higher risk of causing unexpected fires in your home. Likewise, older plumbing can have higher risks of frozen pipes and water leaks. If the insurance carrier determines that your older systems will lead to more frequent claims, it will likely raise your premium to reflect that.
• Roofing: If you haven’t replaced your roof within the last 15 years, the risk of damage to your property during a storm or another covered peril is high. As a result, your premium might also be quite high. Fortunately, most companies will reduce your premium significantly if you get your roof replaced.
• Historic designation: If your home is more than 50 years old and officially designated as a historic home by the National Park Service’s (NPS) National Register of Historic Places, you may need a high-value home insurance policy. This type of coverage, which can be considerably higher than standard homeowners insurance, pays for restorations after covered perils.

The table below demonstrates the difference in average price to insure a new construction vs an older home:

Home insurance policies don’t just help pay for your home’s reconstruction after an unexpected peril, they also come with coverage for other scenarios, protecting your wallet from expenses you can’t predict.

Here’s each coverage category included in your home insurance policy for your older home:

• Dwelling coverage: This is the amount that your provider pays when the structure of your home needs repairing or replacing after a covered event. Depending on your policy, your insurer could pay the total replacement cost of the home up to your dwelling coverage limit, or it could pay only for the home’s depreciated value. With rising costs of construction materials and labor, it's important to make sure your policy's replacement cost value is updated annually.
• Other structures coverage: This coverage helps pay for damages to other structures on your property that aren’t connected to your home, such as a detached garage or a fence.
• Personal property coverage: Homeowners insurance covers your personal property up to a specific limit, usually around 50%–75% of your dwelling coverage limit, depending on your needs. If your items are lost, stolen or damaged, your provider will pay for their replacement or reimburse you for their cash value after depreciation.
• Loss of use coverage: This coverage is commonly known as additional living expenses (ALE) coverage. It helps pay for extra expenses — such as hotel fees and additional gas costs if your commute is farther than normal — while your home is being repaired after a covered peril.
• Liability coverage: If you have an older house, there may be more risk of guests getting injured unexpectedly from structural flaws. Fortunately, homeowners insurance covers legal fees and medical bills you may be liable for should someone have an accident on your property.
• Medical payments to others: This covers medical bills up to a specific limit — usually between $1,000 and $5,000 — for injuries to guests on your property that weren’t your fault, such as your friend cutting herself with a knife in your kitchen.
• Endorsem*nts: These are additional coverage options you can add to your policy to help maximize its coverage. While most companies offer water backup coverage and identity theft coverage add-ons, each has its unique list of options you can pick from depending on your needs.

An HO-8 homeowners insurance policy, sometimes referred to as the modified coverage form, is a type of home insurance designed for older and unique homes. If your home is more than 40 years old and doesn’t have an updated plumbing and electrical system, you may need to purchase an HO-8 policy. This type of insurance is slightly different from standard homeowners insurance.

The HO-8 home insurance policy only protects your home and its contents against the most common perils. For example, HO-8 policies exclude coverage for falling objects, the weight of snow and frozen pipes. In addition, HO-8 policies usually only provide actual cash value (ACV) coverage for the cost to rebuild your home instead of replacement cost value (RCV), meaning your provider would pay for your home’s depreciated value during a covered event rather than paying for the entire reconstruction cost.

HO-8 policies cover losses caused by the following 10 named perils:

• Aircraft
• Civil unrest and riots
• Explosions
• Hailstorms and windstorms
• Lightning and fire
• Smoke
• Theft
• Vandalism and malicious mischief
• Vehicles
• Volcanic eruptions

Our team surveyed dozens of home insurance providers and created a scoring system to assess and compare each company’s quality and service. Here are the factors that account for our provider scores according to our home insurance rating methodology:

• Cost (27%): We compare cost data for homes nationwide to assess how competitively priced each provider is. We also consider each company’s available discounts when determining its overall cost of coverage.
• Coverage (28%): We analyze the comprehensiveness of each provider’s standard home insurance policy and compare optional policy endorsem*nts to determine the quality of coverage.
• Availability and ease of use (15%): We evaluate each company’s customer service options, such as live chat, a customer support phone line, and multiple channels for filing claims and generating quotes. Similarly, we score providers based on their digital resources, such as a mobile app or online customer portal.
• Brand trust (15%): We gauge reputation by evaluating consumer reviews and third-party financial strength and customer experience ratings, including from J.D. Power, AM Best and customer review aggregators.

Companies with the best customer service exhibit 24/7 availability, useful digital tools and a quick claims-filing process. Providers that offer extensive discount options, endorsem*nts, customizable coverage options and unique features score significantly higher than those that don’t, putting them toward the top of our recommendations to readers.

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