Pennsylvania is one of the calmest home insurance markets in the country. The average premium — about $1,365 a year for $300,000 of dwelling coverage — sits at roughly 48% of the national figure. Premiums are projected to rise about 2% into 2026, against a national picture of high single-digit increases. There is no wildfire crisis, no hurricane market, no litigation problem, and the voluntary market is broad and stable.
Which means this guide has room to be useful about the things that actually go wrong on a Pennsylvania policy, rather than about a market in distress.
There are two of them, and the second is bigger than the first.
The first is a question with a genuinely contested answer: can a hurricane deductible appear on a Pennsylvania policy? Most guides say no, flatly, because Pennsylvania is landlocked. But the Insurance Information Institute — the most-cited authority on this exact question — does list Pennsylvania among the 19 states plus DC where hurricane deductibles exist, describing them as typically 1% to 5% of insured value, reflecting remnant-tropical-system exposure in the southeastern part of the state. Section 2 works through why this site records Pennsylvania as a flat-deductible state anyway, and what that means for you practically.
The second is the dwelling limit, and it is the one likely to cost you real money. Pennsylvania's median home price is $340,000. The cost to rebuild an 1,800 square foot Pennsylvania home is about $432,000 — roughly 1.27 times what the median home sells for. Pennsylvania is a state where market value understates rebuild cost, and insuring to the sale price is an error that stays invisible until you file a claim.
This guide covers what coverage costs, the deductible question in full, what a standard policy covers and where the gaps are, how to size your Coverage A limit, why roof age decides your payout, and what the Pennsylvania FAIR Plan does. It is written for someone who has never read a policy front to back.
A note before you start: everything below is general information about how homeowners insurance works in Pennsylvania, not personalized insurance, legal, or financial advice. Policy forms, rates, and underwriting rules vary by carrier and by your individual circumstances — location, construction type, roof age, housing age, and claims history all change the answer materially. For coverage specific to your property, talk to a licensed Pennsylvania insurance agent; for regulatory questions, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department is the state authority.
1. What home insurance actually costs in Pennsylvania
The reference figure is $1,365 a year for $300,000 of dwelling coverage with a $1,000 deductible.
"Dwelling coverage" — labeled Coverage A on your declarations page — is the maximum the policy will pay to repair or rebuild the structure of your home. It is the anchor number for the whole policy. $300,000 is a reference tier used so states can be compared on the same basis; Section 4 explains why it is too low for a typical Pennsylvania home.
Against the roughly $2,872 national average at that same tier, Pennsylvania sits at about 48% — less than half.
Where the figure comes from
Two independent 2026 sources both state $300,000 dwelling coverage explicitly:
- Insurance.com's by-state table: $1,434 ($300K dwelling, $300K liability, $1,000 deductible)
- Insurify's average-cost analysis: $1,296 (same $300K dwelling level, $1,000 deductible)
They are close — about 11% apart, one of the tighter agreements in this dataset — so both are treated as reasonable and averaged: $1,365.
A third read is directionally consistent rather than contradictory: NerdWallet's 2026 analysis puts Pennsylvania at $1,720, but prices $400,000 of dwelling coverage rather than $300,000 — a third more coverage, which implies a lower figure at the reference tier.
The substantive finding: Pennsylvania is one of the cheaper large states to insure a home in. That is a real result and not a data artifact, and it holds across every source.
The trend
Pennsylvania premiums are projected to rise about 2% into 2026 — from roughly $1,681 in 2025 to $1,710, a $29 increase, priced at Pennsylvania's own average dwelling limit rather than a fixed $300,000. Only the percentage change is comparable to the headline figure above; the dollar levels use a different coverage basis.
A roughly 2% increase makes Pennsylvania one of the flattest homeowners markets in the country in 2026, at a time when most states in this dataset are running high single digits. New Jersey next door filed +7.5%; Ohio filed +7.3%.
That stability is worth naming as a genuine advantage. It also means that if your Pennsylvania renewal comes in with a large increase, the market is not the explanation — something about your specific policy, property, or claims history is, and it is worth asking what.
2. The deductible that actually applies to your most likely claim
This section is a judgment call rather than a clean answer, and the honest thing to do is show you both sides and then tell you what to do about it.
The short version
Assume your flat $1,000 all-perils deductible applies to wind and hail like any other peril — but read your declarations page rather than assuming a hurricane deductible cannot be there.
Now the reasoning, because it matters if you are in the southeastern part of the state.
The standard deductible
Your Pennsylvania homeowners policy carries a flat all-perils deductible, typically $1,000 — the amount you pay out of pocket before the insurer pays anything. Pennsylvania agency guidance describes the standard range in the state as $1,000 to $2,500, with $1,000 as the base offering.
Because Pennsylvania policies typically carry no separate catastrophe deductible, this is the deductible that actually applies to wind and hail damage as well as to fire and water. That is genuinely different from most of the states around it. In Ohio and New Jersey, a storm-damaged roof commonly runs through a separate, larger deductible. In Pennsylvania, on most policies, it does not.
The evidence that a hurricane deductible exists here
The Insurance Information Institute's survey of hurricane and windstorm deductibles — the standard reference on this question — names Pennsylvania in its list of the 19 states plus DC with hurricane deductibles, and says Pennsylvania's typically range from 1% to 5% of insured value.
That is not a fringe source or a misreading. It is the authority most other guides cite, and it plainly includes Pennsylvania. The rationale is remnant-tropical-system exposure in the southeastern part of the state — tropical storms and hurricane remnants that track up the Atlantic seaboard and deliver serious wind and rain to the Delaware Valley without ever being a coastal landfall event.
The evidence against treating it as the norm
Three things cut the other way:
- Pennsylvania has no coastline and no coastal wind market of the kind that produces mandatory percentage deductibles elsewhere.
- No Pennsylvania statute mandates a separate wind, hail, or hurricane deductible. There is no mandatory-offer menu, no statutory trigger definition, and no regulatory framework requiring one.
- The measured average wind/hail deductible in Pennsylvania is 0.64% of dwelling coverage — the second-lowest reading in the country. That is derived from a live quote database, and it is flatly inconsistent with percentage catastrophe deductibles being common here. A state where they were the norm would not read 0.64%.
Why this site records it as "does not apply"
The standard used across this dataset for recording a catastrophe deductible as applying is "common or mandated." In Pennsylvania a separate catastrophe deductible is permitted and occasionally used, but neither common nor mandated. So "does not apply" is the honest value.
Both readings are preserved here rather than one being hidden, so that a reader who finds the Insurance Information Institute listing can see that it was considered rather than missed.
What this means for you, practically
If you are anywhere in Pennsylvania: the working assumption is one flat deductible on everything, which makes your policy one of the simpler ones in the region to read.
If you are in the Philadelphia area or the Delaware Valley: do not assume a hurricane or windstorm deductible cannot appear on your policy, because it can. Read the deductible section of your declarations page and look for any figure expressed as a percentage rather than a dollar amount. A separate "hurricane deductible" or "windstorm deductible" line is what you are looking for.
What it would cost if you have one
Worth doing the arithmetic so you know what is at stake. Section 4 works out that an 1,800 square foot Pennsylvania home costs roughly $432,000 to rebuild. If a policy carried a percentage hurricane deductible in the Insurance Information Institute's stated 1% to 5% range:
On the $300,000 reference limit:
- 1% = $3,000
- 5% = $15,000
On a correctly sized $432,000 limit:
- 1% = $4,320
- 5% = $21,600
Against $1,000 flat. The difference between having one and not having one is the difference between a $1,000 out-of-pocket and a potentially $21,600 one, on the same storm.
The trap, if it applies to you
The percentage applies to the insured value of the dwelling, not to the amount of the damage. A 2% deductible on a $432,000 limit is $8,640 whether the storm did $10,000 of damage or $300,000 of damage. It is not "2% of the claim." A $10,000 storm loss under that structure pays $1,360; under a flat $1,000 deductible it pays $9,000.
That is the entire reason this section exists in a state where the answer is usually "you do not have one."
3. What a standard policy covers here — and the gaps
A homeowners policy bundles several coverages, each with its own limit:
- Coverage A — Dwelling. The structure itself.
- Coverage B — Other Structures. Detached garage, shed, fencing, barn. Usually about 10% of Coverage A automatically.
- Coverage C — Personal Property. Your belongings, typically 50% to 70% of Coverage A.
- Coverage D — Loss of Use. What it costs to live elsewhere while repairs happen.
Covered perils typically include fire, lightning, windstorm, hail, theft, vandalism, falling objects, weight of ice and snow, and sudden accidental water discharge from plumbing.
Flood is never covered — anywhere, by anyone's homeowners policy
This is universal across all fifty states, not a Pennsylvania rule. No homeowners policy covers flood. Flood coverage is a separate purchase through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) or a private flood carrier.
Pennsylvania's flood exposure is riverine and it is substantial: the Susquehanna, the Delaware, the Schuylkill, the Lehigh, the Allegheny and Monongahela at Pittsburgh, and the many smaller creeks that run through valley towns. Remnant tropical systems — the same exposure that puts Pennsylvania on the hurricane-deductible list in Section 2 — are a leading cause of serious Pennsylvania flooding, because a stalled tropical remnant can drop extraordinary rainfall over a saturated watershed.
Two things people get wrong:
- Being outside a mapped high-risk flood zone is a statement about a flood map, not about whether your house can flood. A meaningful share of NFIP claims nationally come from outside high-risk zones. Pennsylvania's valley topography concentrates water in ways maps do not always capture.
- Your lender not requiring flood insurance is a lending threshold, not a coverage recommendation.
Sewer and drain backup — the endorsement most Pennsylvania homeowners are missing
This deserves its own heading here, because Pennsylvania's housing stock is old and much of it is served by aging combined sewer systems in cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Water that backs up through a sewer or drain into your basement is normally excluded from a standard homeowners policy. It is not flood and it is not covered water damage — it is its own excluded category. Coverage is available as a sewer backup or water backup endorsement, it is usually inexpensive, and it covers one of the most common and expensive losses a Pennsylvania homeowner actually experiences.
Ask for it by name, and ask what limit you are getting — these endorsements often carry a sublimit far below your dwelling coverage, and a finished basement will exhaust a $5,000 sublimit immediately.
Mine subsidence — a Pennsylvania-specific exclusion worth knowing
Damage from the collapse of underground mines is excluded from standard homeowners policies, and Pennsylvania has more historic underground mining than almost any state — anthracite in the northeast, bituminous across the west and southwest.
Pennsylvania operates a state mine subsidence insurance program through the Department of Environmental Protection precisely because the standard market does not cover this. If you are buying in a county with mining history, ask about it by name. It is not expensive, and it covers a peril your homeowners policy explicitly will not.
Other exclusions worth knowing here
- Earthquake. Excluded from standard policies, as in most states. Available as a separate endorsement.
- Maintenance and wear. Insurance covers sudden accidental damage, not deterioration. Pennsylvania's freeze-thaw cycles are hard on roofs, masonry, and pointing, and a claim for something that failed gradually will be denied as wear.
- Frozen pipes where heat was not maintained. Standard policies cover sudden pipe bursts but commonly exclude freeze damage in an unoccupied dwelling where heat was not kept on or the water was not shut off.
- Ice dams, in part. Water that backs up under shingles from an ice dam is often covered, but resulting interior damage and the ice dam's underlying cause — inadequate insulation or ventilation — can be contested as maintenance. Worth asking your carrier how they treat it.
- Mold, beyond limited sublimits.
- Ordinance or law — the extra cost of rebuilding to current code rather than as originally built. This is a large number in Pennsylvania specifically, because the state's housing stock is among the oldest in the country. A substantial partial loss to a century-old rowhome or farmhouse can trigger current electrical, plumbing, egress, and insulation requirements across the whole structure. Usually available as an endorsement; on old Pennsylvania housing, ask for it by name and ask what limit you are getting.
4. Making sure you have enough coverage
This is the section most likely to save a Pennsylvania homeowner real money, because it is the error the state's low premiums make easy to ignore.
The most consequential number on your policy is your Coverage A limit, and the common mistake is setting it to your home's market value or your mortgage balance. Neither is correct. Dwelling coverage should equal the cost to rebuild your home from the foundation up at today's construction prices. Market value includes land, and land does not burn. Your mortgage balance is a financing number with no relationship to construction cost.
Pennsylvania makes the point cleanly, because the numbers point the wrong way:
- Pennsylvania median home price: $340,000
- Cost to rebuild an 1,800 square foot Pennsylvania home: about $432,000
Rebuild cost is roughly 1.27 times market value. Land is inexpensive across most of the state; construction costs are set by national materials markets and regional labor. If you insure a Pennsylvania home to what it would sell for, you are underinsured — and in a low-premium state, nobody is prompted to check, because the policy is cheap and nothing feels wrong.
Working a real Pennsylvania example
Rebuilding in Pennsylvania runs roughly $240 per square foot — the midpoint of a published $175 to $300 band covering materials, labor, and general contractor overhead and profit, excluding land.
On an 1,800 square foot home:
- 1,800 x $240 = $432,000 to rebuild
That is $132,000 above the $300,000 reference tier the premium comparisons in Section 1 use, and $92,000 above the state's median home price.
The band:
- At $175/sq ft: $315,000
- At $300/sq ft: $540,000
Even the bottom of the range is above the reference tier.
An honest caveat about this figure. Pennsylvania shares its exact $175-$300 range with New Hampshire, which makes it a regional construction-cost band applied to Pennsylvania rather than a Pennsylvania-specific survey. Read it as a range, not a point.
Two independent cross-checks put Pennsylvania construction at $185 and $162 per square foot — both below the figure used here. The $185 read is among the higher figures that series assigns outside the Northeast core, which is at least directionally consistent. But both cross-check series measure a narrower quantity that excludes general contractor overhead and profit, which a real rebuild does not get to exclude.
No Pennsylvania building department or insurance regulator publishes a competing rebuild-cost figure, so get an actual replacement-cost estimate for your specific home — and this matters more than usual on Pennsylvania's older housing stock, where original construction methods, plaster, stone or brick masonry, and non-standard dimensions all push rebuild costs above a generic square-foot estimate.
The 80% coinsurance rule, and what a shortfall does to a partial claim
Most homeowners policies contain a coinsurance provision requiring you to insure the dwelling to at least 80% of its full replacement cost. Fall below that and the insurer does not merely cap your payout at your limit — it reduces every partial claim proportionally.
Work it. Full replacement cost $432,000, so the 80% threshold is $345,600. Suppose you carry the $300,000 reference limit and a fire does $100,000 of damage. Your limit is three times the loss, so it feels safe:
- $300,000 carried / $345,600 required = 0.8681
- 0.8681 x $100,000 = $86,806
- Minus your $1,000 deductible
- Net payment: $85,806 on a $100,000 loss — roughly $14,200 short
Now the homeowner who insured to market value — $340,000 on a home costing $432,000 to rebuild:
- $340,000 / $345,600 = 0.9838
- On a $100,000 loss: $98,378, minus $1,000 = $97,378
Interesting result, and worth being honest about: insuring to Pennsylvania's median market value very nearly clears the 80% coinsurance threshold on a typical home, so the partial-claim penalty is small. The real damage is elsewhere. On a total loss, the policy pays its limit and stops. A $340,000 limit on a $432,000 rebuild leaves you $92,000 short with nothing to prorate and nothing to argue about.
That is the specific Pennsylvania trap: the coinsurance math is forgiving enough that nothing alerts you, and the total-loss math is not forgiving at all.
Why the 80% rule appears twice in this guide
Note this for Section 6, because it comes back: the Pennsylvania FAIR Plan excludes property insured to less than 80% of replacement cost under its dwelling form. So the 80% threshold is not only a claim-reduction mechanism in the private market — in the residual market it is an eligibility requirement. Being underinsured can be the reason the backstop turns you away.
Two endorsements worth asking about by name
- Extended replacement cost — pays a stated percentage above your Coverage A limit, commonly 25% to 50%, when rebuilding costs more than estimated. Valuable on older Pennsylvania housing where rebuild estimates are most likely to be wrong.
- Ordinance or law coverage — the cost of rebuilding to current code, which on century-old housing stock can be a very large number.
5. Roof age, and why it decides your premium and your payout
An honest limitation first. This site's Pennsylvania data file does not record a statewide roof-settlement standard, because Pennsylvania does not impose one by statute. Whether your roof is settled at replacement cost or at actual cash value is set by your policy form and your carrier's underwriting rules. So rather than tell you what your policy does, here is what to find out and why it decides the size of your check.
The distinction to look for: ACV versus RCV
- Replacement cost value (RCV) pays what it costs to put an equivalent new roof on today.
- Actual cash value (ACV) pays replacement cost minus depreciation for the roof's age.
The gap widens every year. On an ACV schedule, a roof fifteen years into a twenty-year expected life has roughly 75% of its value depreciated away — the insurer pays about 25% of replacement cost and you fund the rest. Your deductible then comes off the top of even that reduced amount.
On a $25,000 roof replacement:
- RCV: $25,000 minus $1,000 deductible = $24,000
- ACV: roughly $6,250 minus $1,000 deductible = $5,250
A roughly $18,750 difference produced by one line of policy language that will not appear in a premium comparison.
Why this matters differently in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's advantage here is real: because most Pennsylvania policies carry no separate percentage wind/hail deductible, a storm-damaged roof runs through the $1,000 flat deductible. In Ohio or North Dakota, the same roof claim would face a $3,500 to $6,000 percentage deductible on top of whatever depreciation applied. Pennsylvania homeowners are meaningfully better positioned on roof claims than most of their neighbors.
That makes the ACV-versus-RCV question the whole ballgame here, because it is the only large reduction mechanism on the table.
What actually damages Pennsylvania roofs
The claims profile here is freeze-thaw rather than hail-belt. Ice dams form when heat escaping through an under-insulated attic melts snow that refreezes at the cold eave, backing water up under the shingles. Weight of ice and snow is a covered peril and a real one in the northern tier. Wind from remnant tropical systems and summer convective storms takes shingles.
Two of those three are heavily influenced by attic insulation and ventilation, which is worth knowing because it means roof failures in Pennsylvania are frequently traceable to a maintenance condition — and a carrier that identifies inadequate ventilation as the cause of an ice dam will contest the claim.
Age and availability
Roof age is among the strongest rating factors in residential property insurance, and Pennsylvania's old housing stock means a larger share of roofs are near or past the end of their expected life than in newer states. An older roof can move you from "expensive" to "declined," and on a very old roof some carriers will decline to quote regardless of price.
What to do: pull your declarations page and look for a "roof surfaces" endorsement, any actual-cash-value language applied to the roof, or a scheduled-depreciation table. Ask your agent what replacement-cost roof settlement would cost as an upgrade, and get the number. Ask separately about credits for Class 4 impact-rated roofing, and about whether improving attic insulation and ventilation affects your rating — in an ice-dam state it should at minimum reduce your claims.
6. If no carrier will write you
Pennsylvania has a backstop, and it functions the way a backstop is supposed to: as a genuine narrow last resort rather than a growing shadow market.
The Insurance Placement Facility of Pennsylvania
Established under the Pennsylvania FAIR Plan Act of 1968, the Insurance Placement Facility of Pennsylvania writes basic property insurance for anyone with an insurable interest in property in the Commonwealth who cannot obtain coverage in the voluntary market. Its eligibility standard is also codified at 40 P.S. 1600.202.
What it writes:
- Habitational risks — 1-4 family dwellings
- Commercial risks
The limits, and these are the numbers that matter:
- $500,000 combined building and contents for occupied dwellings
- $335,000 for vacant dwellings
What it excludes:
- Farms
- Mobile homes
- Buildings under construction
- Property insured to less than 80% of replacement cost under its DP 00 02 form
Read the $500,000 limit carefully — it is combined
This is the detail most likely to catch a Pennsylvania homeowner out, and it connects directly back to Section 4.
The $500,000 is a combined building-and-contents limit, not $500,000 of dwelling coverage with personal property on top. Section 4 works out that an 1,800 square foot Pennsylvania home costs roughly $432,000 to rebuild. If you allocate $432,000 to the building, you have $68,000 left for contents — against a private homeowners policy that would typically give you 50% to 70% of the dwelling limit for personal property, which at $432,000 would be $216,000 to $302,400.
So on a typical Pennsylvania home, the FAIR Plan's ceiling is not merely a cap on the structure — it forces a trade-off between insuring the building properly and insuring your belongings at all. On a larger home the constraint binds harder. A 2,200 square foot home rebuilds at $528,000, which exceeds the entire combined limit before you insure a single piece of furniture.
And the 80% requirement is an eligibility bar, not just a claims rule
Note the fourth exclusion above. Property insured to less than 80% of replacement cost is excluded under the plan's dwelling form.
That means the underinsurance problem described in Section 4 has a second consequence in Pennsylvania: it is not only a mechanism that reduces your claim in the private market, it is a reason the FAIR Plan can decline you. A homeowner who has been carrying $300,000 on a $432,000 home has been below the 80% threshold ($345,600) the whole time — and discovers it at the worst possible moment, when the voluntary market has already said no.
Getting your Coverage A limit right is therefore not just about claim size. In Pennsylvania it is about remaining eligible for the backstop.
The honest framing — which is a favorable one
Pennsylvania's voluntary market is one of the more stable in the country, and the FAIR Plan here functions as a genuine narrow backstop rather than the growing de facto market it has become in wildfire and hurricane states. Its typical population is older urban housing stock and properties with condition or loss-history problems — not entire geographic regions abandoned by carriers.
That means two things for you:
- If you are declined, shop harder before accepting the FAIR Plan. In a stable market, two or three declinations do not mean the voluntary market is closed to you.
- If you do end up there, it is usually because of something fixable — roof condition, deferred maintenance, vacancy, or claims history. Those are addressable in a way that "my house is in a wildfire zone" is not.
And as always: no FAIR Plan anywhere covers flood. Riverine flooding and remnant-tropical-system rainfall remain a separate NFIP or private flood purchase.
7. How to actually lower your premium in Pennsylvania
Ranked roughly by how much they move the number in this state specifically. Note that in a market this stable, the biggest wins are about coverage quality rather than price.
1. Fix your Coverage A limit — and expect it to go up. This is first because it is the most consequential error on Pennsylvania policies. Rebuild cost around $432,000 on an 1,800 square foot home against a $340,000 median home price means a large share of Pennsylvania homeowners are insured to something near their sale price. Correcting it usually raises your premium, and it is still the single most valuable thing on this list — it closes a $92,000 total-loss gap and it keeps you eligible for the FAIR Plan's 80% requirement.
2. Confirm your deductible structure is all dollars, especially in the southeast. Per Section 2, a percentage hurricane or windstorm deductible is permitted in Pennsylvania and does appear on some policies. Scan the deductible section of your declarations page for any percentage figure. Finding one is worth up to $21,600 of exposure on a $432,000 limit; confirming there is none tells you your storm claims run through a $1,000 deductible, which is a genuinely strong position.
3. Fix the roof settlement basis. Per Section 5, ACV versus RCV on your roof is worth roughly $18,750 on a typical replacement. Because Pennsylvania has no percentage wind/hail deductible eating into the claim, this is the only large reduction mechanism in play — which makes it unusually worth fixing here.
4. Add the sewer and drain backup endorsement, and check its sublimit. This raises your premium slightly. It is high on the list because Pennsylvania's combination of old housing, finished basements, and aging combined sewer systems makes backup one of the most common real losses in the state, and the standard policy excludes it entirely. A $5,000 sublimit does not cover a finished basement.
5. Ask about ordinance or law coverage, by name and by limit. On century-old Pennsylvania housing this is not a nice-to-have. A substantial partial loss can trigger code upgrades across an entire structure, and the standard policy does not pay for them. Ask what limit is included by default — it is frequently a small percentage of Coverage A that will not go far on an old house.
6. Raise the flat all-perils deductible. Going from $1,000 to $2,500 lowers your premium. In Pennsylvania this deserves more thought than in a percentage-deductible state, because your flat deductible governs your storm and roof claims too, not just small stuff. It is a real trade rather than a free one.
7. Check whether you need mine subsidence coverage. This raises your total spend, and it belongs here because it is inexpensive, it is a state-run program, and it covers a peril your homeowners policy explicitly excludes. If you are in a county with underground mining history, ask.
8. Bundle home and auto. Multi-policy discounts remain among the largest routinely available, and Pennsylvania's competitive, stable carrier landscape means bundle pricing genuinely varies between companies rather than being a token discount.
9. Stop filing small claims. With a $1,000 deductible, small losses barely clear it, and claims frequency drives surcharges and non-renewal. Paying a $2,200 repair yourself is often strictly better than a claim that nets $1,200 and marks your record.
10. Re-shop every two to three years rather than obsessively. This is the Pennsylvania-specific version of the usual advice. In a market rising about 2% a year, annual shopping produces less than it does in a state running 8%. Re-shop when something changes — a new roof, a renovation, a claim falling off your record, or a renewal that jumps unexpectedly — and when you do, compare the premium, the dwelling limit, the deductible structure, and the roof settlement basis rather than the price alone.
What to do next
If you want these numbers applied to your actual house rather than a statewide average, the Pennsylvania premium calculator estimates your annual cost from your own dwelling limit and deductible. The replacement cost calculator works out the Coverage A limit you actually need from your home's square footage using Pennsylvania construction costs — the number to check first, because Pennsylvania rebuild costs run above Pennsylvania market values and that gap is the state's most common coverage error. And the deductible calculator shows what your flat deductible costs you on a real claim, and what a 1% to 5% percentage deductible would cost if one appeared on your policy.
All three show every figure they use and where it came from.
This guide is general information about homeowners insurance in Pennsylvania, based on publicly available figures current as of August 2026. It is not an insurance quote, a policy, coverage advice, or legal advice, and it does not reflect your individual property, county, claims history, or carrier's specific policy language. Whether a separate hurricane or windstorm deductible appears on a Pennsylvania policy is a carrier decision rather than a state rule, and published sources genuinely disagree about how common it is — read your own declarations page rather than relying on any statewide characterization. For coverage specific to your home, speak with a licensed Pennsylvania insurance agent; for regulatory questions or complaints, contact the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.