Insurers Are Using These 6 Tactics to Stiff Homeowners

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla., Dec. 16, 2025 — Weiss Ratings, the nation’s only independent rating agency covering the insurance industry, today issued a comprehensive report with data on six tactics used by home insurers to stiff their policyholders:

1. Flat-out denials. Per the insurers’ own official filings, in 2024, they closed 42.1% of homeowner claims with no payment whatsoever, up from only 25.7% in 2004. 

Moreover, it’s often the largest insurers that have deployed this flat-out denial tactic the most frequently. For example, Allstate Vehicle & Property Insurance (domiciled in Illinois) received 630,930 homeowner claims, closing 50.9% without payment. Allstate Insurance (IL) received 952,222, denying 49,8%. And United Services Automobile Association (TX) got 547,782 claims, nixing 49.5%.

2. Payment Delays. On average, insurers in 15 disaster-prone states delayed payment for 60 days or more on 28.1% of claims in 2024, up from 25.6% in 2018. In Hawaii, the percentage of homeowners kept waiting more than 60 days was the highest in the nation — nearly 44%. In Alaska and California, it was close to 34%.

3. Cutting Claims to the Bone. After Hurricane Ian, several documented cases indicate that insurers cut field estimates of damages from $231,369 to $15,000; $488,000 to $13,000; $239,000 to $3,000; and from nearly $200,000 to $24,619. And in the wake of California wildfires, a court has ruled that the smoke-damage policy of the California FAIR Plan is illegal because it covered only smoke that could be seen or smelled, ignoring nearly all other damages.

4. Policy Non-Renewals. Since 2018, the rate of policy non-renewals has approximately doubled in Florida, Mississippi, Texas and New Mexico. It has tripled in South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Kansas; quadrupled in Arizona and California; jumped 4.7 times in Washington; and surged 5.4 times In Louisiana.

5. Surplus Line Gouging. Homeowners dropped by their regular insurers often have no choice but to switch to surplus line providers. But for every dollar these collected in premium in 2024, they paid back only 16 cents in claims, compared to 54 cents paid by regular home insurers.

6. The push for tort reform. Despite these many abuses, insurance companies, feigning shock at how often customers are going to court, have lobbied hard for laws that make it more difficult to sue.

But policyholder lawsuits are only a big problem in a few key states. In Minnesota, for example, among homeowners whose claims were closed with no payment, only a minuscule 0.6% filed suit in 2024. By contrast, in Florida, the rate was 12.9%, or 21 times more.

Data Disclosure Urgently Needed

By probing each company’s statutory filings, Weiss Ratings is able to collect the needed data to offer consumers this list of U.S. home insurers. It reveals each company’s recent history of flat-out claims denials, helping to guide consumers to the companies with the best track records.

However, neither the insurers nor their regulators disclose company-specific data regarding the other five tactics cited here — (a) claims payment delays, (b) claims payment cutbacks, (c) non-renewals, (d) surplus-line gouging and (e) consumer lawsuits against their insurers.

Weiss demands disclosure of this valuable data to empower consumers to make the best choices, give them the opportunity to vote with their dollars and use market forces to naturally pressure the industry to end their sneaky tactics.

To view or download Weiss Ratings’ 14-page report, Six Sneaky Tactics Home Insurers Use to Stiff Consumers, especially in the Wake of Climate Change, go here. 

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About Weiss Ratings: Weiss rates 53,000 institutions and investments, including safety ratings on insurers, banks and credit unions, as well as investment ratings on stocks, ETFs, mutual funds and cryptocurrencies. Since its founding in 1971, Weiss Ratings has never accepted any form of payment from rated entities for its ratings. All Weiss insurance company ratings are available at https://weissratings.com/en/insurance.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the Weiss ratings of U.S. life and health insurers outperformed those of A.M. Best by 3-to-1 in warning of future financial difficulties, while also greatly outperforming those of Moody's and Standard & Poor's. The New York Times reported that Weiss “was the first to warn of the dangers and say so unambiguously.” Barron's called Weiss Ratings “the leader in identifying vulnerable companies.”