Homeowners with a mortgage are now paying a record $209 a month for property insurance, but the increases that have squeezed housing budgets since 2020 are finally decelerating, according to the September 2026 ICE Mortgage Monitor released Sept. 10 by Intercontinental Exchange.
Insurance costs rose 8.7% over the past year. That is still well above general inflation, but it is down from 11.4% at the start of 2026 and from a peak of 15.1% at the end of 2024. The quarterly increase in the second quarter was 1.8%, which ICE said was the smallest gain since it began tracking the measure.
“Property insurance has been a fast-growing component of the monthly mortgage payment, but this quarter’s data shows the pace of increase is finally slowing,” said Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research at ICE. “The 1.8% quarterly gain we saw in Q2 is the smallest since we began tracking this metric.”
Insurance now accounts for 9.6% of the average monthly mortgage payment, and the average single-family mortgage holder pays nearly 80% more for it than at the start of 2020, ICE said.
What changed: coverage, not repricing
The composition of the increase has flipped. Coverage limits rose 5.5% over the past year and accounted for roughly two-thirds of the cost growth, while the price per $1,000 of coverage rose 3%. In 2024, ICE said, repricing drove the majority of the increase.
That distinction matters for anyone advising a buyer on carrying costs. Rising replacement-cost estimates, rather than carriers raising rates on the same coverage, are now doing most of the work. Premiums are climbing partly because the insured value of the house is climbing.
A 20-point spread between markets
The burden is nowhere near evenly distributed. Insurance eats 24.3% of the average mortgage payment in New Orleans and just 4.3% in San Jose, California, according to the report.
The fastest annual increases came in Greenville, South Carolina, at 15.8%, Honolulu at 14.7%, Minneapolis at 13.1%, and Sacramento and San Diego at roughly 12%. ICE said many of the sharpest increases are occurring in markets hit by recent hurricanes, wildfires and hail.
Miami and New Orleans, the two most expensive insurance markets in the country, recorded among the smallest annual increases, which suggests, on our reading, that the sharpest repricing in those markets has already occurred. RealtyWire reported last month on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to state insurance regulators after average homeowners premiums there climbed 79% in six years.
Shopping produced record savings
The most actionable finding for agents and lenders concerns what happens when a homeowner switches carriers. Those who moved between private carriers over the past year cut their insurance payments by 6.6% on average, which ICE described as the largest savings since it began tracking the data in 2013. Homeowners who stayed with their existing carrier saw premiums rise 10.4%.
The gap works out to $440 a year. Switchers did not buy that saving by stripping down their policies, either: their deductibles fell 1.4% and their coverage limits rose 7.3%.
“At the same time, borrowers who shopped around saw real savings,” Walden said. “Those who switched carriers cut their premiums by a record 6.6%, while also securing lower deductibles and more coverage than those who stayed put.”
Bob Hart, president of mortgage technology at ICE, tied the findings to the company’s own products, saying the market divergence “highlight[s] the value of having both the data to understand where costs and risks are changing and technology that can help address them.” ICE sells insurance shopping tools inside its Encompass origination system and its Servicing Digital platform, so that framing is the company’s own commercial argument rather than a neutral market conclusion.
The affordability arithmetic
On our reading, the slowdown is real but it does not undo the level. A component that has grown nearly 80% in six and a half years and now takes almost a tenth of the monthly payment has permanently reset the cost of owning in exposed markets, and an 8.7% annual increase still compounds faster than wages, which the National Association of Realtors said grew 3.1% in August.
The practical implication is that insurance has become a line item worth shopping every renewal rather than a fixed cost. A $440 annual difference is real money against a payment that has already absorbed six years of increases, and unlike the mortgage rate itself, it is something a homeowner can act on at any renewal.
ICE’s monthly Mortgage Monitor draws on the company’s loan-level residential mortgage database, its home price index and its public property records holdings. The August edition of the report found record homeowner equity of $18 trillion alongside rising delinquencies and foreclosures. More coverage of lending and housing costs is collected on RealtyWire’s Mortgage page.
