Updated: July 10, 2026
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A low-income homeowner can pay as little as $88 a month for coverage with AIG, or as much as $450 with Progressive. Comparing quotes is the single most effective way to cut homeowners insurance costs.
Raising your deductible from $500 to $2,000 saves $54 a month, but only helps if you actually have $2,000 set aside; otherwise it just trades a real cost today for a bigger one later.
If you've been turned away by standard insurers or priced out entirely, your state's FAIR plan and free help through HUD-approved housing counselors are real options, not last resorts to be embarrassed about.
When we compared rates amongst 14 home insurers, the difference between the cheapest and most expensive was $362 a month, or $4,352 a year, for the same policy. If you're working with a limited budget, this is one area where the extra step of comparing quotes pays off.
Home insurance rates can change based on your coverage limits and your credit score. See how premiums can change based on your profile and which home insurance provider is the cheapest below:
Cost alone doesn't determine the right choice, since an insurer that's hard to reach when something goes wrong can outweigh whatever you save monthly. USAA edges out AIG on overall score, 4.79 to 4.77, but USAA is only available to military members and their families, which makes AIG the best home insurance for most low-income homeowners. If customer experience is the priority instead, Amica scores 4.91 out of 5 there for $117 a month, roughly $30 above AIG.
| AIG Insurance | 4.76 | 5.00 | 4.22 | 5.00 |
| Amica | 4.71 | 4.91 | 4.91 | 3.63 |
| AAA | 4.55 | 4.89 | 3.80 | 4.80 |
| State Farm | 4.52 | 4.78 | 4.31 | 4.04 |
| CSAA | 4.48 | 4.78 | 3.80 | 4.80 |
| USAA | 4.79 | 4.69 | 5.00 | 4.75 |
| Farmers | 4.32 | 4.60 | 4.26 | 3.47 |
| Homesite | 4.15 | 4.59 | 3.33 | 4.20 |
| American Modern | 3.88 | 4.58 | 3.47 | 2.18 |
| Allstate | 4.21 | 4.55 | 3.88 | 3.69 |
| Nationwide | 4.06 | 4.34 | 4.17 | 2.82 |
| Chubb | 4.32 | 4.17 | 4.59 | 4.37 |
| Travelers | 3.66 | 4.14 | 3.81 | 1.67 |
| Progressive | 3.75 | 4.09 | 3.87 | 2.29 |
*USAA is available to active military, veterans and their immediate families only.
**AAA availability varies by state and may require AAA membership.
***CSAA is available primarily in California and select states through AAA membership.
If standard market rates are out of reach, programs exist specifically for homeowners the private market prices too high or refuses to cover. Knowing they exist before your policy lapses is the difference between keeping coverage and losing it entirely.
Most homeowners skip on discounts not because they don't qualify, but because they don't ask. The discounts below are available through the top carriers in our analysis, but note that none of them appear automatically on your policy.
Bundling | Combining homeowners and auto insurance on the same policy saves 5% to 15% on the homeowners premium. For a homeowner paying $158 a month, a 10% bundle discount cuts that to $142, a $192 annual reduction without changing coverage. | State Farm, Allstate, Farmers |
Claims-Free | Available to homeowners who haven't filed a claim in three to five years. The discount compounds over time, growing larger the longer the claims-free period lasts, and at some carriers it won't apply automatically until you ask for it at renewal. | Allstate, State Farm |
Home Security and Safety | Applies when a monitored security system, smoke detectors or a central station alarm is installed and verified with a third-party monitoring company. Saves 2% to 10% depending on the system type and carrier. | State Farm, Allstate |
Loyalty and Tenure | Rewards long-tenured policyholders with reduced rates, but the discount can work against homeowners whose original rate reflects an outdated credit score or a past claim. Comparison shopping every two to three years usually outperforms staying on loyalty pricing alone. | Varies by carrier |
Autopay and Paperless Billing | Enrolling in automatic bank draft and paperless billing saves $5 to $15 a year per option combined. Doesn't affect coverage and takes a few minutes to set up. | Most carriers |
A higher deductible lowers your premium, but the math only works in your favor if you have the deductible amount available in savings the day something goes wrong. In our analysis of fair-credit homeowners with $250,000 in dwelling coverage, a jump from a $500 deductible to a $1,000 deductible saved $23 a month, or $276 a year. A jump from $500 all the way to $2,000 saved $54 a month, or $648 a year.
Those are real savings, but a $2,000 deductible on a policy you can't fund out of pocket isn't a discount, it's a coverage gap that materializes the moment you file a claim. Choose the highest deductible you can genuinely cover from savings, not the highest deductible that produces the lowest premium.
If your homeowners policy lapses and you carry a mortgage, your lender will purchase coverage on your behalf, called lender-placed or force-placed insurance, and bill you for it. These policies protect only the lender's interest in the structure, with no personal property or liability coverage, and cost two to three times a standard policy. A homeowner paying $150 a month for standard coverage could see that jump to $350 to $450 a month for a force-placed policy that covers less and protects only the bank.
Before a lapse happens, ask your current carrier about a payment plan or temporary hardship accommodation, since most carriers offer one but won't volunteer it. If you've been declined coverage outright, your state's FAIR plan is built for exactly that situation as a last-resort option. Either route beats a lapse, which triggers force-placed insurance, damages your credit and follows you into every future insurance application.
For a low income homeowner, the cheapest insurer is AIG at $88 a month, and it also earns a perfect 5 out of 5 coverage score. The one trade-off is customer experience, where Amica scores 4.91 for $30 more a month. Whether that $30 is worth it depends on how likely you are to file a claim and how much the claims process matters to you.
AIG is the cheapest option in our analysis at $88 a month, or $1,054 a year. It also earns the highest affordability score (5 out of 5) and coverage score (5 out of 5) among all 14 insurers we analyzed. The one area where it trails the field is customer experience, where it scores 4.22, below Amica's 4.91 and USAA's 5.
Yes, but your credit score has a direct impact on what you pay. In our analysis, a middle-aged homeowner with fair credit paid an average of $302 a month for $250,000 in dwelling coverage. The same homeowner with excellent credit paid an average of $190 a month, a $112 monthly difference, or $1,344 a year. The carriers with the smallest penalty for fair credit versus excellent credit in our data were Progressive, Nationwide and Allstate, while the most expensive providers were Travelers, CSAA and State Farm.
Call your insurer before the policy lapses. Most carriers offer payment plans, and some will grant a short-term deferral for homeowners in financial hardship, but only if you ask. If the policy lapses and you have a mortgage, your lender will purchase force-placed insurance on your behalf at two to three times the cost of a standard policy, with no personal property or liability coverage. If standard market coverage is unaffordable, contact your state's FAIR plan before the lapse date.
Replacement cost coverage on both the dwelling and personal property is the better choice for a low-income homeowner who can't absorb the depreciation gap at claim time. Actual cash value policies pay what your belongings were worth at the time of loss, not what they cost to replace. A five-year-old couch valued at $150 under ACV coverage costs $600 to replace. Over an entire household, that gap reaches thousands of dollars. The monthly premium difference between ACV and replacement cost coverage runs $5 to $15 a month; the financial difference after a major claim is not.
Raising your deductible lowers your premium, but the savings diminish as the deductible increases. In our analysis, moving from a $500 to a $1,000 deductible saved $23 a month on average for a fair-credit homeowner with $250,000 in coverage. Changing from $1,500 to $2,000 saved an additional $15 a month. The math only works in your favor if you have the deductible amount available in savings.
Our rate data comes from Quadrant Information Services, drawn from state insurance filing records across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. We analyzed 14 national carriers across five coverage levels, four deductibles ($500 to $2,000) and five credit tiers, using a base profile of a 41-to-60-year-old homeowner with fair credit, $250,000 in dwelling coverage and a $1,000 deductible. Our MoneyGeek score combines affordability, customer experience and coverage quality into a single ranking, with each scored separately out of 5 so readers can weigh what matters most to them.
Discover how we collect and use data in our home insurance methodology.
About Mark Fitzpatrick
Mark Fitzpatrick, a licensed Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance Producer in Connecticut, is MoneyGeek's resident insurance expert. He has spent nearly a decade analyzing the market, first at LendingTree and now at MoneyGeek, where he produces original research on hundreds of carriers and millions of rates across auto, home, renters, health and life insurance.
He covers economics and insurance at MoneyGeek, and his work has been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times and NPR, among other outlets.
Like all MoneyGeek analysts, he draws on independent cost and consumer experience data. No insurance company partnership influences his recommendations.
Mark holds a B.A. from Boston College and an M.A. in Economics and International Relations from Johns Hopkins University. He started his career in financial risk management at State Street and is also a five-time “Jeopardy!” champion.
