LOUISVILLE, Ky. — From groceries to gasoline, prices are going up acrss the board. Rising prices are also impacting home insurance rates. In fact, a recent report shows double-digit increases in the Commonwealth.
Terry Samuels is an independent insurance agent who owns The Samuels Agency. He’s been in the insurance business for a little over 10 years.
“What I like the most is just making sure that a customer is covered. In the event that something happens, the last thing you want to do is incur a loss and then you have to come out of pocket and you don’t necessarily have the funds to be able to take care of it,” Samuels explained.
He’s noticed that the price of home insurance has gone up. The insurance comparison platform, QuoteWizard, said their analysts found Kentucky’s average price of home insurance went up 22%, since 2022. Their report shows the average annual premium in 2023 for the state sits at nearly $3,000.
“In the last year or two, home values have gone up. We really kind of thought they would go the opposite route. But with COVID, in Louisville, there’s really a home shortage, so values have skyrocketed,” Samuels explained.
Mother nature is having an impact too. That report found that in the last 20 years in Kentucky, there have been 54 billion-dollar natural disasters statewide. People are still cleaning up from horrific flooding in eastern Kentucky and devastating tornadoes in western Kentucky.
“You typically have a pool of customers that have insurance. So, if you incur a loss, most of us can’t come out of pocket $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, $100,000,” explained Sameuls. “So what happens is, if there’s a loss, or a natural disaster, it impacts everybody within that whole area because everybody’s having to get their house rebuilt. What that does, it reverberates across the state because of the way they rate coverage.”
Samuels said there’s things you can do now to try and save money on home insurance, like shopping your rate or make sure your home has safety features.
“Burglar alarm, smoke alarm. Make sure your insurance agent realizes that you have all those types of things. Then make sure that your upkeep is good on your house as well, because a lot of times when you don’t do the proper upkeep. Sometimes they’ll come out and inspect the home and they’ll see certain things,” Samuels explained.
Because when it comes to insurance, he understands how the state ebbs and flows, no matter what mother nature brings.