California home insurance
Every figure below is sourced and dated. Estimates only — not quotes, and not offers of coverage.
Home insurance premium estimator
What homeowners insurance costs in your state, and whether what you pay is out of line.
Replacement cost calculator
Is your dwelling coverage actually enough to rebuild — and what a shortfall costs at claim time.
Deductible comparison
What a higher deductible really saves, how long it takes to pay off, and what a storm deductible actually costs.
Renewal increase check
Did your renewal go up more than premiums did across your state — and what to do about it.
Full coverage check
All six limits on your policy against what the standard form and regulators say to expect — including the liability limit nobody looks at.
California at a glance
- Average premium
- $1,829/ yr
- At $300,000 of dwelling coverage.
- Standard deductible
- $1,000
- Applies to everyday claims.
- Storm deductible
- No separate wind, hail, or hurricane deductible is standard in California — the deductible above applies to storm damage too.
- Insurer of last resort
- California FAIR Plan Association
- Created in 1968, the California FAIR Plan is the state's insurer of last resort and is now the single most consequential fact about the California market. Residential policy count has grown from about 124,000 in 2019 to 668,609 at December 31, 2025 and roughly 663,000-675,000 through 2026 - the highest in its history - with total loss exposure of about $768 billion as of June 2026, 94% of it residential. It is deliberately a thin product: basic fire, lightning and smoke, capped at $3 million of residential dwelling coverage, with no liability and no coverage for water damage, theft or falling trees, so buyers typically pair it with a 'difference in conditions' policy from a private carrier to rebuild a normal homeowners package. The January 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires cost the plan an estimated $4 billion and forced a $1 billion assessment on its member insurers, half of which regulators allowed carriers to pass through to policyholders (about $28 for a median homeowner). The plan then requested a 35.8% average residential rate increase; the Department of Insurance approved 29.1%, effective October 15, 2026 - the largest in its history, with high-wildfire-risk areas seeing far more than the average and some wildfire premium components roughly doubling.
Last updated 2026-08-28. How we source every figure