There is no honest single number, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. What your beach house costs to insure depends on which of two North Carolina policy types it falls under, and those two are on very different approved rate tracks right now.
This is the question we get most often from second-home buyers looking at Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Oak Island, Topsail and Wrightsville Beach, and it is the one where bad information does the most damage. Buyers plug an address into an online estimator, get a number, and build their whole budget on it. We have watched those estimates miss by a factor of five for the same street.
So here is what is actually knowable. North Carolina sets insurance rates through public filings by the North Carolina Rate Bureau, which the Insurance Commissioner either approves, settles or takes to hearing. Those filings are public, they are dated, and they tell you the direction and the size of the change even when they cannot tell you your premium. That is the honest version of an answer, and it is more useful than a made-up average.
Which policy your beach house falls under changes everything
If the beach house is your primary residence, it is insured on a homeowners policy. If it is a second home, a vacation home or a rental, it is almost certainly on a dwelling policy instead. North Carolina files and approves rates for those two separately, and in the last two years they have moved very differently.
On the homeowners side, the Rate Bureau asked for a 42.2% statewide average increase with some beach territories going up as much as 99.4%. The Insurance Commissioner settled it in January 2025 at 7.5% statewide on June 1, 2025 and another 7.5% on June 1, 2026. The beach territory covering Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties, along with Carteret and Onslow, got 16% on June 1, 2025 and 15.9% on June 1, 2026. The eastern coastal territory in those same counties got 10.5% and then 10.1%.
On the dwelling side, which is where most beach houses sit, the Rate Bureau filed on October 30, 2025 asking for 68.3% over two years, split as 28.5% and then 30.9%. That one settled far lower: 5% effective October 1, 2026 and another 5% effective October 1, 2027, with mitigation credits for owners who invest in fortified roofs and homes built to withstand high winds.
- Homeowners, beach territory in Brunswick, New Hanover, Pender, Carteret and Onslow: approved 16% on June 1, 2025 and 15.9% on June 1, 2026 NC Department of Insurance settlement, reported by Port City Daily, January 2025
- Homeowners, eastern coastal territory in the same counties: approved 10.5% in 2025 and 10.1% in 2026 NC Department of Insurance settlement, reported by Port City Daily, January 2025
- Dwelling policies, non-primary residences statewide: 5% effective October 1, 2026 and 5% effective October 1, 2027 NC Department of Insurance, April 2026
- What the Rate Bureau asked for on dwelling policies: 68.3% over two years, filed October 30, 2025 NC Department of Insurance, November 2025
- Mitigation credits for fortified roofs are part of the dwelling settlement in many eastern North Carolina territories NC Department of Insurance, April 2026
Notice what that means for a buyer. If you are buying a beach house as a second home this fall, the dwelling rate that applies to you goes up 5% on October 1, 2026 and 5% again a year later. That is a change you can plan around. The 68.3% headline that ran in the news last winter is not what was approved.
Your premium is not one bill, it is three or four
The other reason a single number misleads people is that a coastal house rarely carries one policy. Budget for the pieces separately.
The base policy covers the structure and liability. Wind and hail may or may not be included; on the coast, carriers frequently exclude wind, and that coverage goes to the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association, which most people call the Beach Plan. We wrote a full explanation of what the Beach Plan is and whether you get stuck with it, because that is where a lot of coastal budgets go sideways.
Flood is always separate. It is not in your homeowners or dwelling policy, it comes through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood carrier, and on the barrier islands it is not optional in practice even where it is not required by a lender. Our Wilmington flood zone and flood insurance guide walks through how the zones work and what changes the price.
Then there is the deductible structure, which is the part buyers skip. Coastal policies commonly carry a separate named storm or hurricane deductible written as a percentage of your dwelling coverage rather than a flat dollar amount. On a high-value beach house that percentage can be a very large number in a year when a storm makes landfall. Read the declarations page, find that percentage, and do the multiplication yourself before you close.
What we tell buyers to do instead of guessing
Get real quotes on the actual address during your due diligence period, not after. Ask the listing agent for the seller’s current declarations pages for every policy on the house, including wind and flood. Ask for the roof age and whether the roof meets a fortified standard, because that is now tied to credits in the dwelling settlement. Ask whether the wind coverage is with a standard carrier or the Beach Plan, since that tells you a lot about what the next renewal will look like.
If the house is a rental, ask for the actual insurance line from the owner’s operating statement for the last two years rather than an estimate. And if the numbers come back higher than your plan can absorb, that is useful information found at the right time. Walking away during due diligence costs you an inspection and a fee. Finding out in year two costs a great deal more.
We deliberately have not given you an average premium for a Wilmington-area beach house, and we want to be straight about why. We went looking for one. No North Carolina Department of Insurance or Rate Bureau publication we could find reports an average premium for this market, and the affiliate estimator sites that do publish figures disagree with each other so wildly for the same city that quoting any of them would be worse than saying nothing. The approved percentages above are real and dated. A dollar figure would not be. There is a second limitation worth naming: approved changes are territory averages, and your own renewal can land above or below them depending on your carrier, your claims history, your roof and your distance to the water.
Related questions people also ask
Is flood insurance included in a beach house policy in North Carolina?
No. Flood is a separate policy in every case, written through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood carrier, and it does not come bundled into a homeowners or dwelling policy. Buyers are surprised by this every year, usually after a storm. If a lender is involved and the property sits in a mapped high-risk zone, flood coverage will be required as a condition of the loan, and you should price it before you are under contract rather than after.
Does renting out my beach house change my insurance?
Yes, and you should tell your agent before you list it anywhere. A house you rent out is generally not insured on a standard homeowners form, and short-term rental activity in particular can affect both coverage and liability terms. Carriers have denied claims over undisclosed rental use. The honest move is to describe exactly how you plan to use the property when you get quotes, so the policy you buy is the policy that will respond.
Will my premium go down if I put on a new roof?
It can, and the North Carolina dwelling settlement approved in April 2026 specifically includes mitigation credits for owners who invest in fortified homes and roofs built to withstand high winds in many eastern North Carolina territories. The size of the credit depends on the carrier and the standard the roof meets, so ask your agent what documentation they need before the work starts. A roof replaced without the right inspection paperwork may not earn the credit even if it would have qualified.
Before you make an offer on a coastal property, get a written quote for the base policy, wind and flood on that exact address, and ask the seller for their current declarations pages. If you want help reading what comes back, or you are trying to decide whether a particular beach house works as a second home at all, bring the address to our team and we will go through the real numbers with you.
Sources: North Carolina Department of Insurance, “Commissioner Causey negotiates dwelling rate settlement with insurance companies,” April 22, 2026. North Carolina Department of Insurance, “Insurance companies request 68.3% increase for dwelling policies,” November 3, 2025. North Carolina Department of Insurance homeowners rate settlement, January 17, 2025, with territory figures as reported by Port City Daily, January 25, 2025. Our own Topsail Beach community guide and coastal insurance explainer. All read September 30, 2026.
