Personal Money · Wednesday, 9 September 2026

01 Briefing what happened

Most home policies pay in full only if you insured at least 80% of a rebuild. Below that, every claim is cut.

Personal Money 44 sources

Three quarters of the Colorado homeowners who lost houses in the Marshall Fire were underinsured. Falling short does not only bite on a total loss - the insurer takes the same shortfall off a small repair.

74%

of the homeowners who lost houses in Colorado's Marshall Fire were underinsured

36% held cover worth less than three quarters of a rebuild [1]

$280

median cost per square foot to rebuild a US home, about $410,000 for a typical one

the figure counts demolition and clearing the site, not what a buyer would pay [3]

44%

of claims settled by the five biggest US home insurers last year paid nothing at all

the same figure was 36% a decade earlier [4]

18.8%

of Marshall Fire owners filed to rebuild within a year of losing the house

the study estimates 25.4% would have if everyone had been fully covered [1]

The lead story — what happened

Most home insurance policies in the United States pay a claim in full only if the cover is at least 80% of what it would cost to rebuild the house from the ground up. [2][5]
That rebuild figure is not the price of the house. It is labour, materials, demolition and site clearance, and it can sit well above or below the market value. [3][6]
Fall under the line and the insurer does not simply refuse the largest claims. It pays a fraction of every claim, worked out from how far short the cover was. [2]
Kiplinger works the example. A house costing $600,000 to rebuild needs $480,000 of cover. A $450,000 policy is 93.75% of that minimum, so a $50,000 repair pays $46,875 and the owner finds the other $3,125, on top of the deductible. [2]
A study of 3,089 policies from 14 insurers, held by people who lost homes in Colorado's Marshall Fire, found 74% were underinsured. For 36% of them the policy covered under three quarters of the rebuild bill. [1]
It was not a low-income problem. Among households earning more than $180,000 a year, 72% still held too little. Credit scores and mortgage size had nothing to do with it. [1]
87% of those policies carried extended replacement cost, an add-on that pays 10% to 50% above the limit, and nearly three quarters of them still fell short. [1][7]
The shortfall decided who came back. Within a year of the fire 18.8% of owners had filed to rebuild, against the 25.4% the researchers estimate would have if all were fully covered. 9.7% sold their lots instead of 5.4%. [1]
Which insurer a household picked predicted how much cover it held, even after income, home value, credit record and the house itself were accounted for. Insurers differ in the limits they write. [1]
Buyers compare the premium, not what the premium buys. Comparing quotes at the same coverage amount was worth about $290 a year, roughly a tenth of an average US premium. [1]
Colorado premiums rose nearly 60% over five years, driven by wildfire and hail losses, and rebuilding costs jumped again after the fire as hundreds of houses went up at once. [1]

Who is involved

The US Federal Housing Finance Agency

the US agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two firms standing behind most US home loans; it announced in March that they will accept policies paying only a roof's worn-down value [10]
State Farm, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, USAA and Farmers

the five largest home insurers in the United States; together they paid nothing on 44% of the claims they settled last year [4]
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority

the free national body Australians can take an insurer to; it is now receiving a record 100 insurance complaints a day [19]
Public adjusters

separately licensed claim specialists a household can hire to argue its own claim, as against the adjuster the insurer sends [14]

Where this points

Rebuilding bills keep rising faster than the limits written into policies, and the thing that would change the picture is a rule making insurers show the rebuild estimate each quote is priced on. [1][3]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Insurers paying out less High↑

The five biggest US home insurers paid nothing on 44% of settled claims, against 36% a decade ago [4]. US car insurers paid nothing on 45% of liability and medical claims, against about 35% ten years earlier [18]. Australia's ombudsman is taking a record 100 insurance complaints a day [19].

Cover thinned to hold the price down Building↑

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now accept policies paying only a roof's worn-down value, and those run 10% to 20% cheaper [10]. Cover on belongings is often written the same way, paying what a sofa was worth rather than what a new one costs [8][9].

Rebuild bills outrunning the limits High↑

The median US rebuild runs $280 a square foot, about $410,000 for a typical house [3]. Property insurance on US apartment buildings rose from $39 to $68 per flat a month between 2019 and 2024 [21]. Colorado premiums rose nearly 60% in five years [1].

Households with nothing behind them High→

Only 47% of Americans say they could meet a $1,000 emergency, and 29% owe more on cards than they hold in savings [29]. About half of insured Americans say premiums stress them, 49% on car cover and 46% on home [17]. US marketplace health enrolment fell by 2.6 million in a year [24].

The rest of the day

32 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
Fannie and Freddie drop the roof rule

The US Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced in March that the two firms will accept home policies covering only a roof's depreciated value. Those firms stand behind most US home loans, so what they require shapes millions of policies. A replacement roof costs $5,000 to more than $30,000. One mortgage lender described the result plainly: insurance covers $9,000 and the owner owes another $9,000. Policies written this way run 10% to 20% cheaper. [10]

Why it matters — It writes the lead story's gap into a rule. The premium falls the day the policy is bought, and the depreciation is worked out after the hail. [10]
03
Nearly half of home claims pay nothing

The five biggest home insurers in the United States are State Farm, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, USAA and Farmers. Together they paid nothing on more than 44% of the claims they resolved last year, on an analysis of company regulatory filings by The Wall Street Journal. A decade earlier the figure was 36%. Industry analysts and executives told the newspaper the main reason is that insurers have tightened claim handling after years of losses on home cover. [4]

Why it matters — A claim that pays nothing is not the same as damage nobody claimed for. Those households funded the repairs themselves. [4]
04
Car insurers refused 45% of claims

Car insurers in the United States paid nothing on 45% of the liability and medical claims they resolved last year, up from around 35% ten years earlier, on the same Wall Street Journal analysis of thousands of regulatory filings. The rate may move slightly as more claims settle. Americans are required to hold car insurance as a condition of driving. [18] The average US premium is about $194 a month, drawn from a study of more than 97 million quoted rates. [43]

Why it matters — A driver cannot refuse the product, only pick a seller, and the premium is what is on display when they pick. The terms are read after the crash. [18][43]
05
Australia's ombudsman logs 100 complaints a day

Insurers in Australia are generating a record 100 complaints a day to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, the free national body that settles disputes between customers and financial firms, on data it gave Guardian Australia. Home-building complaints are at their highest since 2022-23. Rick Maloney's house in Mooroopna, Victoria flooded in 2022. He fought for two years while the building sank and mushrooms grew between his floorboards, and was paid in January 2025 only after the authority ruled his chipboard flooring was covered. [19]

Why it matters — A dispute that runs two years costs the household the repair and the wait, whatever the ruling eventually says. [19]
06
A year on, California fire survivors have not rebuilt

A year after wildfires swept through Los Angeles County, survivors told NPR that insurance payouts had been too slow or too small to rebuild with. Mihaela Plesa, a Democratic member of the Texas state legislature, said on a call with reporters that families struggling to pay for home cover routinely have claims denied, and called it extraction rather than insurance. Frustration is nationwide after years of rising premiums and more extreme weather. [20]

Why it matters — The complaint is not that cover was refused at the counter. It was sold, paid for, and then did not stretch. [20]
07
Rebuilding is priced by the square foot

The median cost to rebuild a home in the United States is $280 a square foot, about $410,000 for a typical house, on a NerdWallet analysis of data from First Street, a firm that models climate risk. It varies sharply by state: Louisiana runs about $331 a square foot, Nebraska about $248. A rebuild bill includes demolition, clearing the site, labour and materials, and it is not what a buyer would pay for the house. [3]

Why it matters — The figure a policy is written against is a construction estimate, and building costs move independently of house prices. [3][6]
08
What double the cover actually costs

NerdWallet's 2026 US rate tables show what more cover costs. A policy with $200,000 of dwelling cover averages $1,480 a year, $400,000 averages $2,490, and $600,000 averages $3,510. Doubling the limit from $200,000 to $400,000 adds about $1,010 a year, not another $1,480. The same tables show a house built in 1984 costing $2,490 a year to insure against $1,425 for one built in 2025, at identical limits. [36]

Why it matters — Cover does not price in a straight line, which is part of why a cheaper premium and a thinner policy are easy to mistake for each other. [36]
09
The add-on that does not close the gap

Extended replacement cost is a rider paying a set percentage above a policy's dwelling limit, usually 10% to 50%, when rebuilding runs over. Eighty-seven percent of the Marshall Fire policies studied carried one and nearly three quarters of those still failed to cover a full rebuild. The researchers found the rider softens the price spike that follows a disaster, when hundreds of houses are rebuilt at once, but does not repair a limit that was too low to begin with. [7][1]

Why it matters — A percentage added to a wrong number gives a larger wrong number. [1]
10
Worn value or new value, decided years earlier

Home policies settle belongings one of two ways. Actual cash value pays what an item was worth on the day it was destroyed, after subtracting for age and use. Replacement cost pays what a new one costs. A sofa lost in a covered fire on the first basis is paid at what a second-hand sofa sells for. Actual cash value carries a lower premium, and most US insurers sell an upgrade to the other. [8][9]

Why it matters — The choice is made when the policy is bought and felt only at the claim, which is the same delay the lead story turns on. [8][9]
11
Ten things a home policy will not pay for

Standard US home cover excludes ground movement - earthquakes, landslides, sinkholes - and floods from rivers or heavy rain, along with backed-up sewers. Mould is covered only where the insurer accepts the cause was sudden and accidental, which rules out slow leaks. Wear and tear is excluded outright: the owner is expected to maintain the roof, the pipes and the floors. [12] A policy is written for sudden or accidental damage, not for gradual decay. [13] Separate policies exist for some of these gaps. [12]

Why it matters — Many of the gaps are not the size of the cover but its edges, and both are settled in wording read after the damage. [12][13]
12
Hiring your own claims assessor

The adjuster who inspects damage after a claim normally works for the insurer, as an employee or a contractor. A public adjuster is a separately licensed specialist a household can hire to run its own claim and press for everything the policy allows. They are used mostly on large, complicated losses and are paid a share of the settlement. NerdWallet reports they may raise the payout or save the household time. [14]

Why it matters — In an argument about what a loss cost, the reading that counts is the one written down, so it matters who writes it. [14]
13
Disputing a refusal

A US insurer that denies a home claim generally has to give its reason in writing. The common ones are that the damage is excluded, that it was gradual rather than sudden, or that the repair costs less than the deductible, leaving nothing to pay. A household can gather receipts, photographs and independent repair estimates, appeal to the insurer, and escalate to the state insurance regulator if that fails. [11]

Why it matters — An appeal only works on a claim the wording already covered, so the argument is largely settled before it starts. [11][13]
14
The policy that only ever pays part

A first-loss policy is property insurance written deliberately below the full value of what it covers. It is used mainly against theft and burglary, where losing everything at once is very unlikely - a thief does not empty an entire warehouse. The premium is lower and claims are handled faster. The trade is that a large loss is not fully compensated. It is a business product rather than a household one. [15]

Why it matters — It is the arithmetic of underinsurance chosen on purpose, priced for, and written into the contract instead of discovered afterwards. [15]
15
An empty house is a different risk

A standard US home policy assumes somebody lives in the house. Leave it empty for more than a month or two and the insurer may not pay for vandalism, theft or other damage. That covers a property inherited when a parent dies, a rental between tenants, or a house left on the market after a move. Vacant home insurance exists for that gap, and insurers ask to be told before the house empties. [16]

Why it matters — The cover lapses on a fact about the owner's life, not about the building. [16]
16
Half of insured Americans are stressed by the premium

A NerdWallet survey found 49% of Americans with car insurance and 46% of those with home insurance say the cost of the premiums stresses them financially. The survey covers people who already hold cover, so it measures the strain of keeping a policy rather than the cost of going without. [17] Kiplinger reports that some US homeowners pay more than four times the national average, depending on where the house is and what it is built of. [38]

Why it matters — When the premium is the number that hurts every month, it becomes the number people shop on. [17][38]
17
Insurance is now inside the rent

Property insurance on US apartment buildings rose from an average $39 per flat a month in 2019 to $68 in 2024 after inflation, a rise of more than 75%. The figures come from Federal Reserve research using the operating statements of buildings whose mortgages were bundled and sold on. Rental revenue rose alongside it. The researchers estimate the average tenant pays $7 to $12 a month more because of it, under 1% of average rent, with owners absorbing most of the increase. [21]

Why it matters — A tenant who buys no insurance at all is still paying a share of the building's. [21]
18
Who lives where the cover is failing

Brookings, a US research institute, mapped climate risk against the homeowners insurance market and found the strain lands unevenly. In the American South - Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi - Black residents make up an average 28.8% of the population in the most vulnerable postal areas, against 10% in the best-adapted ones. [22] A companion report ties this to settlement patterns, past housing policy and uneven local spending on flood and fire defences. [23]

Why it matters — Where a house sits was set by decades of housing policy, and the insurance bill now reads off that map. [22][23]
19
Insurers pulling out of whole areas

Home insurance in the United States is becoming both dearer and harder to buy, as insurers raise prices and withdraw from places with extreme weather, NPR reported. Southwest Florida, damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022, is one of the communities changing as a result. Being unable to buy at all is a different problem from a high premium. A household that can find no insurer will not get a mortgage on the house either. [37]

Why it matters — It is the other half of the lead story. A policy that pays part of a claim still beats having no seller at all. [37]
20
2.6 million dropped US health cover

Enrolment in the United States' health insurance marketplaces fell from 21.8 million people in February 2025 to 19.2 million in February 2026, a drop of about 2.6 million or 12%, on federal data released in June 2026. That is the steepest single-year fall since the marketplaces opened in 2014. The extra subsidies holding premiums down expired at the end of 2025, and many buyers faced paying more than double for the same plan. [24]

Why it matters — It is the same decision as a thin home policy, taken at the level of the whole product: pay far more, or carry the risk yourself. [24]
21
Why the health premiums jumped

About 85% of Americans who buy their own health cover receive a federal subsidy towards the premium, Matt Fiedler of Brookings said on its podcast. The subsidies have existed since the marketplaces opened in 2014 and were enlarged in 2021; that enlargement expired at the start of 2026. [25] In Maine, a 31-year-old woman told NPR her premium was already $460 a month for the highest-deductible plan available, and that she would go without cover in 2026. [26]

Why it matters — Healthy people leave first, which raises the average cost of the people left, which raises the price again. [26]
22
What a one-dollar premium does

Brookings examined what happens when a health plan's net premium moves from zero to a token amount. One study found enrolment 12% lower among people charged $1 a month than among those left at nothing. Another, comparing people just above and below Colorado's eligibility line for free bronze plans, put the fall at 8% to 16%. In the 2025 US enrolment period, 42% of plan selections carried a net premium of $10 a month or less. [39]

Why it matters — Charging one dollar removes more people than charging nothing. That is about attention, not about whether somebody can find a dollar. [39]
23
Life cover is priced on a guess about death

Life insurance in the United States averages about $26 a month. A healthy 40-year-old man buying $500,000 of 20-year term cover pays around $321 a year, and the same policy bought at 60 costs many times that. [27] Insurers set prices from mortality tables, interest rates, inflation and lapse rates - how many people stop paying before any claim is made - then adjust for the individual's health, family history and nicotine use. [44]

Why it matters — The lapse rate means part of every premium is priced on the expectation that some buyers will pay for years and claim nothing. [44]
24
The scam where the customer is the fraudster

Friendly fraud, where a shopper receives goods and then tells their bank the payment was never authorised, rose from 15% of reported fraud worldwide in 2023 to 36% in 2024, on a LexisNexis Risk Solutions report. It became the single most reported fraud category, and analysts expect it to keep growing through 2026. The report puts it down to tighter household budgets creating temptation. The loss falls on the retailer, who is out both the goods and the payment. [28]

Why it matters — Refund rules written to protect shoppers from strangers are now being used by the shoppers themselves. [28]
25
Under half could find $1,000

Just 47% of Americans say they hold enough cash, or can reach enough money, to cover a $1,000 emergency, on a Bankrate survey published in February 2026. Twenty-nine percent carry more credit card debt than emergency savings, against 44% with more savings than card debt, and 31% treat clearing the card and building the buffer as equal priorities. [29] NerdWallet's monthly resilience index, run with The Harris Poll, slipped from 63.1 to 62.1 between July and August. [40]

Why it matters — A household with no buffer meets a shortfall in an insurance payout as a debt, not as an inconvenience. [29][40]
26
Britain freezes what you may save

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a UK charity that researches poverty. It reports that capital limits in the British benefits system - the savings a household may hold before its benefits are cut - have been frozen. Inflation therefore shrinks, in real terms, what people are allowed to set aside. The benefit cap has not been raised since 2023. Frozen housing support alone is estimated to push 20,000 private renters, including 10,000 children, into poverty in 2025-26. [30]

Why it matters — A cap on savings decides who is allowed to keep a buffer. Several of today's stories turn on households that have none. [30][29]
27
Retirement wealth rises, but not for everyone

Federal Reserve researchers built a measure they call annualised comprehensive wealth, which converts everything a retired US household holds - savings, pensions, housing, expected benefits - into one yearly figure. The median household's figure rises through retirement, meaning people run down their resources more slowly than their remaining life expectancy shortens. The rise is driven almost entirely by college-educated and White households. Other groups are flat or falling. [31]

Why it matters — The headline finding and the finding by group point opposite ways, and only one of them describes most retired households. [31]
28
The earnings limit on an early pension

Someone in the United States who claims a state retirement pension before full retirement age and keeps working faces an earnings limit of $24,480 in 2026. Above it, the Social Security Administration holds back $1 of pension for every $2 earned. A separate monthly test applies in the first year of retirement, the limit is higher in the year a person reaches full retirement age, and it disappears from that point on. [32]

Why it matters — A person can work a shift, be paid for it, and lose half of it out of a pension cheque that arrives separately. [32]
29
China's pension bill, modelled

The International Monetary Fund modelled what an ageing population does to China's pension system, using a model that separates rural and urban households. Ageing alone could slow annual economic growth by about 2 percentage points between 2024 and 2050, while pension spending rises by nearly 10 percentage points of national income. China's 2024 decision to raise the retirement age eases part of it, lifting growth by 0.2 points a year and cutting projected pension spending from 15.3% to 11.9% of national income by 2050. [33]

Why it matters — Retirement ages are argued about as fairness. This is the arithmetic underneath that argument. [33]
30
Why US housing got unaffordable

Brookings argues that America's housing affordability problem comes from too little new building rather than from demand. House price growth has outpaced income growth almost everywhere over time. Policies that lift demand - lower mortgage rates, a 50-year mortgage, letting buyers take a deposit from retirement savings - push against a supply that barely responds to price, so they raise prices further. Rent control in New York City is named as a second example that adds no supply. [34]

Why it matters — It sets what a household is bidding against, before anyone asks what insuring the house adds each month. [34]
31
The US central bank inside house prices

The US central bank bought $1.33 trillion of mortgage-backed securities between 2020 and 2022, equal to nearly 90% of the growth in that market over the period, Brookings researchers found. They argue this helped drive the housing boom and the inflation that followed it. Housing inflation was still running at 4% in mid-2025 while inflation excluding housing had fallen to 2%, and consumer prices overall peaked at 9% in 2022. [35]

Why it matters — The number that ended up inside rents and house prices was set by a policy aimed at something else entirely. [35][34]
32
How US households say they are doing

Near the end of 2024, 73% of American adults said they were doing okay financially (39%) or living comfortably (34%), on the Federal Reserve's annual survey of household well-being. The rest said they were just getting by (19%) or finding it difficult to get by (8%). The 73% was close to the 2023 reading but five percentage points below where it stood in 2019, before the pandemic. [41]

Why it matters — It is the base that every insurance shortfall in today's other stories lands on. [41]
33
What families earn, by age

Median family income in the United States ranged from $49,073 for households headed by someone aged 75 or over to $91,878 for those aged 45 to 54. The figures come from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances for 2022, the most recent available. The 45-to-54 band is peak earning: accumulated experience, promotions, and often two full-time incomes at once. Older households draw more from pensions and retirement withdrawals than from wages. [42]

Why it matters — A $410,000 rebuild bill is being carried by households whose best earning years top out near $92,000. [42][3]

02 Lesson why it matters

Being half covered is not cover for half the disasters

A home insured for less than a rebuild costs does not lose protection on the worst losses. Every claim, however small, is cut by the same share.

The twist

Being short on cover does not leave the biggest losses uninsured and the small ones safe. It quietly cuts the payout on a kitchen fire too.

How it works

You buy cover by comparing one number: the premium
What it pays turns on a second number - your limit against a real rebuild bill
Nobody checks that second number while you are paying
It is checked once, by the insurer, after the loss
If it is short, the shortfall comes off every claim, not only the big ones

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Fannie and Freddie dropping the roof rule

the same second number, moved by rule - the premium falls the day the policy is signed and the roof's worn-down value is worked out only after the hail
Belongings covered at worn value rather than new

the settlement basis is chosen at purchase, when the premium is the visible difference, and its effect appears at the claim
Car insurers paying nothing on 45% of claims

drivers compare premiums because the law makes them buy something, and the terms that decide payment are read for the first time after the crash
Rick Maloney's two-year wait in Victoria

the wording on cracking and movement sat unread in his policy from the day he bought it, and was argued over only once mushrooms were growing through his floor

Where you've seen this

Freight and parcels

a carrier pays out on the value you declared at the counter, so a box declared cheap is compensated cheaply however valuable it was

School exam entries

the paper a student is entered for months ahead caps the grade the marking can award, whatever they write on the day

A builder's written quote

the specification agreed before work starts is what any dispute at the end gets measured against

The catch

Buying the add-on does not settle it. Nearly nine in ten of the Colorado policies studied carried extended cover, and almost three quarters of those still came up short.

And the whole of it

The homeowner picked a number they had no way of pricing, and the insurer priced it and said nothing. Both were doing the job in front of them. Most of us are holding some promise whose real limit is a figure we agreed to once and have not looked at since.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

Home insurance is sold on the premium and paid on a rebuild figure the buyer never sees priced. Three quarters of the Colorado homeowners who lost houses in the Marshall Fire found that out after the fire, and the US Federal Housing Finance Agency has since let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accept policies that pay only a roof's worn-down value. [1][10]

Why it works on us — One visible price is easy to compare and feels like the whole product, so buyers shop on the premium and treat everything behind it as the same; the Colorado study found the insurer a household picked predicted its coverage level even after income, credit and the house itself were accounted for. [1]

Who gains

Insurers who write limits under the rebuild figure — The policy collects a premium every year and pays a reduced share of every claim, and the shortfall is only measured after the loss. [2][1]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — Accepting roof cover at worn-down value lets borrowers qualify on cheaper policies, which keeps mortgages moving. [10]
Public adjusters and claims lawyers — The more claims are cut or refused, the more households pay a specialist to argue them. [14][11]
Owners of US apartment buildings — Insurance per flat rose from $39 to $68 a month and rental revenue rose alongside it, so part of the cost moved to sitting tenants. [21]
Car insurers — Drivers are required by law to buy the product, and 45% of liability and medical claims settled last year paid nothing. [18]

Who pays

Marshall Fire households that never rebuilt — 18.8% filed to rebuild within a year against the 25.4% estimated for full cover, and 9.7% sold their lots instead of 5.4%. [1]
US homeowners with older roofs — A worn-value payout can leave half the bill: one lender described insurance covering $9,000 of an $18,000 roof. [10]
Rick Maloney in Mooroopna, Victoria — He waited two years while his flooded house sank and mushrooms grew between the floorboards, and was paid only after the ombudsman ruled. [19]
People who dropped US marketplace health cover — Enrolment fell from 21.8 million to 19.2 million in a year as the enlarged subsidies ended. [24]
Households in Black-majority postal areas of the US South — They are 28.8% of residents in the most climate-vulnerable areas against 10% in the best-adapted ones, so the withdrawal of cover reaches them first. [22]
Americans with no cash behind them — Only 47% say they could meet a $1,000 emergency, and 29% owe more on cards than they hold in savings. [29]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

How many homeowners are underinsured across the United States.

The 74% figure is one fire in one Colorado county, measured from 3,089 policies. No national count appears anywhere in the sources we read. [1]
02

When the roof rule actually changed.

Morningstar says the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced it in March, but the copy we could read carries no year, so we cannot say which March. [10]
03

Why the five biggest US home insurers pay nothing on 44% of claims.

The Wall Street Journal's sources name tougher claim handling, but the split between claims below the deductible, excluded damage and disputed damage is not published. [4]
04

Whether the two non-payment figures are measured the same way.

Home claims read 44% and car liability and medical claims 45%, both from the same newspaper's analysis of regulatory filings, and neither method is set out in what we could read. [4][18]
05

What the US Congress will do about the enlarged health subsidies.

About 85% of people buying their own cover receive a subsidy, marketplace enrolment has already fallen by 2.6 million, and Brookings notes that a later reversal would bring some buyers back and not others. [25][24]
06

How much of the rise in US rents since 2019 is insurance.

Property insurance per flat rose more than 75% in real terms, yet the Federal Reserve's own estimate of the effect on the average tenant is only $7 to $12 a month, and it finds little correlation between insurance costs and asking rents. [21]
07

Whether Australia's complaint surge means more disputes or simply more claims.

The ombudsman's count of about 100 insurance complaints a day is not published alongside the number of claims filed, so the rate is unknown. [19]
08

What China's retirement-age change does to an individual pension.

The IMF models national pension spending falling from 15.3% to 11.9% of national income by 2050 and does not publish what that means for one household's payment. [33]

04 Hope carry this

Rick Maloney spent two years arguing with his insurer while his flooded house in Mooroopna, Victoria sank into the ground and mushrooms grew between the floorboards. Australia's free complaints authority ruled that the damage to his flooring was covered, and he was paid in January 2025.

Also true today

In England, free childcare that used to start at two years old now starts at nine months, and was due to reach 30 hours a week by September 2025. The UK minimum wage for people aged 21 and over rose from GBP 11.44 to GBP 12.21 an hour, a rise of 6.7%.
Insurance companies with long roots in the towns they cover write higher coverage limits on the same houses than companies without them. The economists who found this in Colorado put it down to reputation.
Nobody could measure how far short home cover falls until economists matched confidential records for 3,089 policies against what rebuilding a house actually cost after the Marshall Fire.