For each city, we considered houses with average size relatively for their cities, insured for $300,000 of dwelling coverage (except for Badger), with a $1,000 deductible.
While not mandatory, it is strongly recommended to purchase a home policy if you live anywhere in Alaska.
Two major kinds of factors influence the home insurance rates in Alaska: environment-related, and home-related. Alaska has a particular geographic position and geology, e.g. in the extreme North of America and facing the Pacific Ocean, so it is exposed above all to every consequence of cold, rains, and earthquakes.
- Ice and snow: this natural element reigns in Alaska, and is the number one of troubles for homeowners all year long. Freezing or bursting of pipes, piles of ice crashing roofs, avalanches, melting of ice that cause floods are common issues, also due to climate change. Standard home insurance like H03 covers these perils except for flood, which will require flood insurance from the NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program) or a private company.
- Rain: amount and frequency of precipitations are troublesome because, again, they cause floods. Few inches of water inside your house may cause several thousand dollars of damage, so choose adequate coverage to protects carpets, electronic devices, antiques, personal objects.
- Wildfires: in summer they generate from a combination of sudden heat, wind, and drought. While basic homeowners policies cover fire as accidentally caught, some insurance companies may choose to not insure houses in a district that is at high-risk for such a hazard; when underwriting your policy, be priorly informed if your house can be covered.
- Earthquakes: the terrain of Alaska is affected by constant quakes, very small in entity but frequent. This poses the risk of a major event, so you should buy earthquake insurance.
- Falling trees: not a special feature of Alaska, but merely for a probabilistic reason, especially if your house is nestled in nature. A tree smashing your roof can be devastating damage, and its removal may have a cost too: a standard homeowners insurance covers the damages from this kind of peril, assuming that the fall was caused by something, instead of neglect.
- Bears: a minor, yet possible issue is the attack from these ridiculously strong animals. Some weak external components outside your home as fences, gardens, wooden walls can be damaged or even destroyed: you are covered from this contingency on a basic level of insurance, but ask your insurer for details.
Home-related factors
The size, location, and materials of your house dictate a base level for determining the premium.
- Materials: in Alaska wood is largely used for buildings: a wooden house is cheaper to buy but more costly to insure than a structure made of bricks and cement or stone since it would be less resistant to quakes, avalanches, fire, and floods.
- Age: a house that is modern, retrofitted, or upgraded to the most recent standard of safety will receive a lower premium, or discounts especially if you are new to homeowners insurance.
- Replacement cost: an adequate dwelling coverage for the city of Anchorage ranges from $250,000 to $360,000, depending on the ZIP code.
Related to the neighborhood is property crime. By different statistics and facts, Alaska results having a high crime rate throughout the entire State, but relatively low in the major cities, which thus are benefiting from moderate annual insurance premiums, when you see those compared with the U.S. average.
Your credit score is also important. To have a good score in Alaska means anything above 660, which can grant you optimal annual rates and possible discounts.
Remember that in order to have the lowest premium for your home policy you have still important options: shopping around to find better rates, choosing a high deductible, improving your credit score, bundling home insurance with a car policy, staying with the same company at renewal.
Use the tool to get first quick estimates of coverages and premiums for your ZIP code, then get quotes from a trustworthy insurance company of your choice.
*Methodology: we aggregated and averaged multiple quotes for every city of the State, assuming a 35 years old individual, married, with a good credit score. Our effort is to keep data always updated and the most accurate possible, so as to satisfy at best the consumer’s expectations.