Homeowners Insurance in St. Paul, Minnesota (2024)

Home to Minnesota’s capitol, St. Paul is a bustling midwestern city located on high bluffs that overlook the Mississippi River. While residents are out enjoying the nature and culture their city has to offer, luckily, their Minnesota homeowners insurance policies are silently protecting their homes and properties. 

Let’s explore how insurance protects homeowners in Minnesota, how much you can expect to pay for your policy, and everything else you might want to know about getting coverage in this half of the Twin Cities. 

Homeowners insurance in St. Paul costs, on average, about $2,382 annually, or about 19% above the state average of about $1,926 annually. It’s important to note that the numbers are just that, though, an average. 

Your insurer considers many factors about you, your home, and your policy when determining your premiums. The factors they use help them determine how at-risk you are of filing a claim. So, more risk factors mean higher premiums and fewer risk factors will typically mean lower premiums. 

One of the primary factors that determines your rates is the amount of dwelling coverage you elect to carry on your policy. Dwelling coverage, or Coverage A, is the part of your policy that covers the elements that make up the main structure of your home, like the roof, walls, flooring, and much more. 

As this is arguably the “main” part of your policy, the amount of dwelling coverage you have directly affects your premiums. Let’s see exactly how drastically your premiums may change when you adjust your dwelling coverage limit.

As you can see, adjusting your dwelling coverage limit by $100,000 can change your premiums by nearly $850 annually, and that’s without considering the other pieces of the premium puzzle.

As stated, insurers use several factors about you, your policy, and your home when determining your rates. While your dwelling coverage limit certainly plays a role, other characteristics of your policy, like your deductible amount, other coverage limits, and whether you have optional coverages, can affect your premiums. 

Insurers may use personal characteristics like your marital status, claims history, or credit history when determining your rates, too. They may use characteristics of your home like its construction type, age, location, replacement cost, and if you have any attractive nuisances on your property. 

Your location’s characteristics, like its predisposition to severe weather or crime, can also help insurers determine your risk of filing a claim and, thus, your premiums. 

In fact, one of the reasons premiums are 20% above average in St. Paul when compared to the rest of the state may be the city’s ranking in the 91tst percentile for property crime. This means only 9% of cities in the country experience more property crimes than St. Paul. If you’re at risk of experiencing property crime, like robbery, you may pay above-average claims. 

Getting the best homeowners insurance in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a different journey for each policyholder, as everyone will have different values when it comes to their policy. While some of the cheapest average rates can be found with insurers like Travelers, AAA, and Farmers, each policyholder will have different premiums based on their individual characteristics.

While some policyholders may feel that the best policy is the cheapest one on the market, others may disagree. Finding the best policy is all about determining what you value most in a policy and finding one that best suits your needs. When searching, you’ll likely find the choice comes down to two main categories: cost and coverage.

Those who value cost over coverage on their policies will likely choose a policy from an insurer that offers the cheapest rates on the market. However, that may mean they have to sacrifice coverage, as lower rates are often accompanied by lower coverage limits. 

On the other hand, those who value coverage over cost may opt for a policy from an insurer that offers high coverage limits and a robust selection of optional additional coverages, called endorsements. But, these policyholders may have to compromise when it comes to cost, because the more coverage you have, the higher your premium will be.

Once you determine which you value more, cost or coverage, it’ll be easier to narrow your search to find the best policy for your needs. When you know what to look for, the process of gathering quotes will be much simpler. 

While many homeowners opt to maintain a home insurance policy, it’s important to note that homeowners aren’t required by law to have one. However, St. Paul residents who use a mortgage lender to pay for their homes may be required to maintain a policy as a stipulation of the loan.

Mortgage lenders require loanees to maintain a home insurance policy to protect their financial investment in your home. If a peril happens to damage your home, they want to know that the damage will be fixed. Generally, mortgage lenders require you to maintain a policy worth the loan amount at least.

While homeowners insurance policies are highly subjective based on each policyholder, they follow the same basic pattern when it comes to standard coverage types. So, let’s see what homeowners in this Twin City can expect on their insurance policies. 

Coverage A is often considered the main part of your policy, as it protects the structure of your main home. Should any of the elements that make up the structure of your home suffer damage caused by a covered peril, Coverage A, or dwelling coverage, would help you rebuild.

Dwelling coverage protects things like your:

Coverage B helps protect the structures on your property that aren’t covered with Coverage A. Essentially, this coverage, also known as other structures coverage, helps protect the structures on your property that aren’t attached to your main dwelling.

Other structures coverage can help protect things like your:

Coverage C can help you repair or replace your belongings if they’re damaged by a covered peril on your policy or stolen. It may also be called personal property coverage.

Personal property coverage helps protect things like your:

Coverage D, or loss of use coverage, can help you and your family cover the cost of necessities if your house is considered a total loss after damage from a covered peril. 

Loss of use coverage may reimburse you for things like:

Coverage E can be used to protect your liability if you damage someone else’s property or if someone sustains an injury on your property. If you’re considered at fault for one of those accidents, this coverage type can help you cover medical expenses and legal fees.

Some medical expenses personal liability coverage may cover are:

Coverage F, or medical payments coverage, is similar to Coverage E, but it will only cover minor medical expenses and doesn’t require fault in the accident. It may cover similar medical expenses as those covered by personal liability coverage on a smaller scale.

Due to its proximity to the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers and several inland lakes, St. Paul is prone to flooding. They don’t call Minnesota the Land of 10,000 Lakes for nothing. Unfortunately, homeowners insurance doesn’t cover flood damage. Instead, homeowners would require a separate Minnesota flood insurance policy for flood coverage.

Floods can be extremely damaging from just a small amount of water. So, you’ll want to ensure that if your area is even slightly prone to flooding, you have a flood insurance policy that will protect you from getting washed out. You can bind a flood insurance policy through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) or a private insurer. 

Regardless of what you value in your policy, getting cheap St. Paul homeowners insurance premiums is always a win. However, some ways to save require more compromise than others. As insurance premiums continue to soar in the North Star State, savings are more valuable now than ever before.

So, let’s go over a few ways you can save on your premiums.

Perhaps the most obvious and safest way to save on your homeowners insurance is to search for applicable discounts. Insurers offer a range of discounts for various reasons that can be combined to maximize your savings. 

Customizing your coverage limits is one way to significantly lower your premiums. Simply put, the less coverage you carry, the lower your premium will be. So, if you need to pinch every penny, this might be the best way to save while still maintaining some coverage. However, keep in mind that you’re on the hook for anything that exceeds your coverage limits.

Insurance policies with higher deductibles will have lower premiums and, in turn, those with lower deductibles will have higher premiums. So, if you need to lower your premium, raising your deductible should help you out. Remember, though, that a high deductible means a higher out-of-pocket cost before you can get coverage when making a claim. 

If you’re looking for homeowners insurance quotes in St. Paul or anywhere else in Minnesota, we’re here to help. Here at Clovered, we have a free quoting engine you can use to access your unique quotes in minutes. 

If you need help getting your quotes, have a question about homeowners insurance in St. Paul, or would simply rather speak to a person, one of our licensed insurance agents would be happy to assist you. You can contact our agents at 833-255-4117 or at [email protected]. Happy quoting!