One question I’ve gotten a lot in my time as an independent insurance agent here in Nashville, particularly from new and soon-to-be homeowners: “So what does home insurance usually cost here?”

It’s a hard question to answer — kinda like asking, “What does a car cost here in Nashville?” It depends: What kind of shape is the car in, how many bells and whistles are you looking for, and how good is your credit?

Home insurance rates in Nashville depend on a lot of things, and I’m more than happy to dig into all the different variables and how they can help/not-so-help you. Just reach out.

But for the purposes of answering that question in at least a basic way — getting you acquainted with that component of Nashville homeownership, ballpark wise — I sketched out some averages, and showed you where we fit in them.

Hopefully, it helps with context. But if you’d like to go deeper — and shop for coverage that fits your home and family — I’m always here to help.

Home insurance rates across the U.S.

Quick answer from one of my favorite sources on all things insurance, the aptly named Insurance Information Institute: From data they gathered in a 2017 study, the average home insurance premium in the United States in 2014 was a little over $1100.

Any study would likely show a higher number since then, since premiums have been rising across the country over the past few years. In 2005, the average home insurance premium in the U.S. was $764, and it steadily and surely crept up to that 2014 number.

There are a lot of reasons for the uptick, but one driver: More money’s been going out for claims.

The frequency of home insurance claims has been going down across the country (almost a third between 2011 and 2015), but the actual dollar figures — amount paid per claim — has shot up (from under $8500 to almost $11,500 during that same time frame).

So, easy math: Expenditures go up, prices follow. There’s more to it, but it’s a good part of the equation.

Home insurance rates in Tennessee

Closer to our addresses: We’re kind of right in the middle here in Tennessee, as far as home insurance averages go, ranked 19th in a list of costs by state. So, average Tennessee home insurance cost for the Insurance Information Institute’s study was almost equal to the national average: About $1,100.

If you’re looking to feel a little superior, Floridians have it the toughest, with an average home insurance rate of $2055 that puts them firmly at No. 1. Oregonians, meanwhile, get lots of extra cash for hiking boots, with a $574 average.

Home insurance rates in Nashville

Rounding back to home: Finance site Value Penguin did a study in 2018 comparing home insurance quotes across 70 cities in Tennessee, and they found an average that was quite a bit higher than the III’s latest: just over $1700 a year.

That said, being in Nashville seems to help us enjoy cheaper home insurance rates than much of Tennessee. In their study, average Nashville home insurance rates were about $1400 — 18 percent below the state mean.

That savings was true in most of Tennessee’s largest cities, but we actually do better than Chattanooga (15 percent below) and Memphis (barely under the average). Knoxville’s really winning the Tennessee home-insurance savings game, though, with rates that were 28 percent lower than the state average. (The Tennessee cities with the highest rates were smaller towns like Woodbury, Paris and Lafayette.)

So, what to take from all of this?

These averages may or may not apply to your Nashville home — as with anything based on averages, it’s mashing extremes together, from Brentwood health care magnates’ sprawling mansions to songwriters’ cozy cottages in Madison.

But maybe one key takeaway from this data: We’re not faring terribly on home insurance rates compared to the rest of the country, and we’re faring pretty well, compared to the rest of the state.

And hey, we’re not in Florida.

Have some questions about home insurance in Nashville, or need to shop for new coverage? I’d be glad to help — call or email Tucker Coverage here.

Prefer to work digitally? Grab an online home insurance quote here.