FACT SHEET: New Jersey’s Home Insurance Crisis
Last Updated: 8/18/25
Climate change is pushing property insurance companies to raise rates and cancel policies in New Jersey. Between 2019 and 2024, home insurance rates in the Garden State increased by 24%, and non-renewals increased by 70% between 2018 and 2023. The increasing risk of wildfires and hurricanes in the state is a major driver of New Jersey’s home insurance crisis. Trump’s disaster response cuts, alongside his far-reaching tariffs, will make New Jersey’s home insurance crisis even worse.
- NEW JERSEY’S HOME INSURANCE RATES HAVE SOARED IN RECENT YEARS, AND COSTS CONTINUE TO GROW
- INSURERS ARE REFUSING TO RENEW HOMEOWNERS’ POLICIES OR ARE PULLING OUT OF NEW JERSEY’S INSURANCE MARKET ALTOGETHER
- CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXTREME WEATHER ARE DRIVING NEW JERSEY’S INSURANCE CRISIS
- TRUMP WILL MAKE NEW JERSEY’S INSURANCE CRISIS EVEN WORSE
NEW JERSEY’S HOME INSURANCE RATES HAVE SOARED IN RECENT YEARS, AND COSTS CONTINUE TO GROW
- Between 2019 and 2024, home insurance rates in New Jersey increased by 24%, placing the state among the top 40 with the largest rate increases.
- In 2024 alone, home insurance rates in New Jersey increased by 10%.
- Lemonade Insurance Company raised rates by 12.9% in 2025.
- New Jersey was projected to see some of the biggest insurance rate increases in 2025, with the average annual premium expected to increase by $99, or 6%.
- Ocean and Monmouth counties were projected to see some of the largest population losses in the state over the next 30 years because of rising home insurance costs and climate disasters.
INSURERS ARE REFUSING TO RENEW HOMEOWNERS’ POLICIES OR ARE PULLING OUT OF NEW JERSEY’S INSURANCE MARKET ALTOGETHER
- As of March 2025, an estimated 10% of homes in New Jersey were uninsured.
- Nationally, 14% of Latino homeowners and 11% of Black homeowners do not have home insurance, compared with 6% of white homeowners.
- As of 2020, Hispanic and Black people made up 21.6% and 12.4% of New Jersey’s population.
- Latinos are more likely to live in disaster-prone areas that are experiencing the steepest increases in insurance premiums.
- As of January 2025, State Farm dropped some New Jersey homeowners from its coverage.
- Between 2018 and 2023, New Jersey’s non-renewal rate increased by 70%, placing it among the top 10 states with the fastest-growing non-renewal rates.
- Cape May, Atlantic, and Hudson counties were among the top 100 counties nationwide for the biggest jump in non-renewal rates.
- Coastal counties in New Jersey had a higher risk index because of hurricane damage, with eight New Jersey counties having a high risk of coastal flooding, and more than 10 having a high risk of river flooding.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXTREME WEATHER ARE DRIVING NEW JERSEY’S INSURANCE CRISIS
- In 2024, New Jersey experienced more than 1,400 wildfires, burning over 11,000 acres.
- Wildfires are becoming an increasingly serious threat in some areas of New Jersey, further threatening New Jersey property owners. At least six counties had active wildfires in November 2024, and in May 2025, a wildfire burned more than 15,000 acres.
- After Hurricane Sandy hit the state in 2012, New Jersey homeowners filed nearly 75,000 flood-insurance claims. According to FEMA, the National Flood Insurance Program paid just over 58,000 claims by the start of 2015.
- Tim Evans, the research director at New Jersey Future, said climate issues in the state, like inland and coastal flooding, coupled with more people moving to New Jersey, could worsen the property insurance market for homeowners.
TRUMP WILL MAKE NEW JERSEY’S INSURANCE CRISIS EVEN WORSE
- Trump’s tariffs were expected to increase home insurance costs in New Jersey by $53.
- Tariffs were expected to slow down disaster recovery efforts and make them more expensive. The National Association of Home Builders estimates a cost increase of $10,900 per home due to tariffs on construction materials.
- Trump cut 10% of workers at the U.S. Forest Service, hampering efforts to clear brush and thin trees to reduce the risk and intensity of wildfires, and stunting the agency’s capacity to stop the spread of wildfires when they break out.
- Vicki Christiansen, who served as Forest Service chief during Trump’s first term, said, “The threat of these changes is significant,” adding, “$40 million in savings now just to have an additional $4 billion in wildfire expenses is crazy.”
- In addition to staffing cuts, 19% of firefighting jobs in the Forest Service’s Eastern region, which includes New Jersey, were unfilled as of July 2025.
- Trump’s cuts to disaster relief at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and attempts to disband FEMA would also increase the cost of home insurance.