What your storm deductible actually comes to in dollars, and whether raising your regular deductible is worth the exposure. Estimates only — not a quote.
No separate wind, hail, or hurricane deductible is standard in California. Your ordinary deductible — typically $1,000 here — applies to storm damage too. Checked, not skipped - and the answer is genuinely counterintuitive for the state with the worst catastrophe story in the country. California has no hurricane, named-storm or percentage wind-hail deductible convention. It is absent from the Insurance Information Institute's list of 19 states plus D.C. that use hurricane or windstorm deductibles, and there is no California analogue to Florida's Fla. Stat. 627.701 menu. A standard California homeowners policy carries one flat all-perils deductible, and wildfire - the state's defining peril - is a covered cause of loss under that ordinary deductible, not a separate percentage retention. TWO THINGS THAT LOOK LIKE EXCEPTIONS AND ARE NOT. (1) Earthquake is EXCLUDED from every standard homeowners policy and is bought separately, most often through the California Earthquake Authority, where deductibles run 5% to 25% of the dwelling limit. That is a deductible on a different policy, so it is not encoded here. (2) Standalone WILDFIRE deductibles have begun appearing on some high-value and non-admitted policies - United Policyholders has documented cases including an AIG policy carrying a $621,000 wildfire deductible separate from its $100,000 standard deductible. Those are real and worth watching, but they are concentrated in the excess-and-surplus and high-net-worth segments and are nowhere near a market convention. Recording applies: true on the strength of them would badly misdescribe what an ordinary California declarations page says today. THIS FIELD IS THE ONE MOST WORTH RECHECKING IN 2027.
This needs your two real quoted premiums. We deliberately don’t apply a “typical savings” percentage: deductible credits vary by carrier, state, and filing, so a made-up multiplier would give you a break-even that looks precise and isn’t. Ask your insurer to quote both deductibles — it takes one phone call, and the answer is specific to you.
What homeowners insurance costs in your state, and whether what you pay is out of line.
Is your dwelling coverage actually enough to rebuild — and what a shortfall costs at claim time.
Did your renewal go up more than premiums did across your state — and what to do about it.
Your renewal jumped and the carrier said 'rates went up.' Here is what is actually driving it, how to tell whether yours outran your state's, and the four levers that genuinely move the number.
Flood and earth movement are excluded from every standard homeowners policy — and the clause that excludes them is written so a wind-and-water loss can be denied entirely. Here is what is out, and what fills each gap.
Non-renewed, cancelled, or declined: read the notice correctly, stop force-placed insurance, fix the reason code on it, and get the house insured again in 30 days.
The exact sequence to run when your house is damaged — mitigation, documentation, the claim call script, the adjuster visit, reading the estimate, and every escalation step in order.