Nearly four in ten US homeowners have assumed something was covered by their homeowners insurance and been wrong. And for roughly one in five of all respondents, that assumption cost them money out of pocket, according to Hippo Insurance Services' 2026 Extreme Weather Report.
The survey, conducted by Centiment on behalf of Hippo Insurance Services between July 13 and 22, polled 1,047 US homeowners aged 18 or older. The report found that 37% could not confidently explain what their homeowners policy covers for weather-related damage. More than half , or 55%, didn't know their own deductible without looking it up.
These aren't hypothetical knowledge gaps. Half of all US homeowners have paid out of pocket for weather-related home damage in the past three years, the report found, with 21% of those paying $2,000 or more and 9% paying $5,000 or more. For those who couldn't absorb the cost, 22% are still carrying that debt, and 71% of them have held it for two years or more.
The deductible they couldn't name became the bill they couldn't pay.
The data complicates a common assumption about homeowner preparedness. Eighty-five percent of respondents actively monitor weather alerts in their area, yet 90% say they feel unprepared for at least one severe weather event. The disconnect isn't about attention. It's about what happens once the alert goes out.
Only 21% of homeowners have reviewed their home insurance policy in the past year to understand what's covered, and 31% took no preparedness action at all in the past 12 months.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they're worried about extreme weather damaging their home, a concern grounded in a year that has already produced 12 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the US through the first half of 2026, ranking fifth for the most events during any first half of a year since records began in 1980, according to Climate Central.
Yet the coverage literacy problem persists regardless of how active the storm season is, and it has financial consequences that compound over time. A separate survey of 1,663 US adults with home or auto policies, conducted in June 2026 by The Harris Poll on behalf of VIU by HUB, found that one in three claimants said their coverage fell short, with 14% saying no part of their claim was covered.
When homeowners want storm-preparation advice, 65% turn to a local meteorologist and 31% to friends or family. Only 12% turn to their insurance agent. That figure comes directly from Hippo's own survey and reflects something specific: homeowners who are paying attention to weather risk are not connecting that attention to their coverage. The agent conversation isn't happening at the moment it would be most useful.
That gap has a cost. The JD Power 2026 US Home Insurance Study, based on 17,191 homeowners and renters surveyed between July 2025 and July 2026, found that high customer trust is associated with three times higher intended retention and 2.6 times lower likelihood of shopping for a new carrier. Proactive outreach lifts complete policy understanding to 60%, compared with 48% among customers who received no insurer contact in the past 12 months.
As Craig Martin, executive director of insurance intelligence at JD Power, put it: "Homeowners are dealing with a broader affordability problem, not just an insurance premium problem." A client who doesn't understand their coverage discovers the gap at claim time, the worst possible moment for that discovery.
Hippo's data makes the downstream stakes concrete. Just 22% of homeowners say they are truly financially prepared for an unexpected weather-related repair right now, meaning they have savings on hand or the ability to do the work themselves. Forty-four percent say they could manage but it would be a stretch, and 34% say it would cause real financial stress or they simply couldn't cover it.
Cost is the most-cited reason homeowners aren't making protective upgrades. Thirty-nine percent say it's too expensive, ahead of those who doubt upgrades will make a difference (21%) or don't know which upgrades are necessary (18%).
High winds are the event homeowners feel least ready for, cited by 58% as the risk they feel most unprepared to handle at home. Part of the explanation is predictability. Unlike hurricane season or a winter cold snap, individual wind events are harder to forecast and can arrive with little warning. That makes it difficult for homeowners to build preparation into their routines even when the damage potential is significant.
Courtney Klosterman, home insights expert at Hippo, treats the preparation gap as one that doesn't require a renovation budget to close. "The homeowners who fare best after severe weather usually aren't the ones who spent the most - they're the ones who did the small things ahead of time," Klosterman said. "Our data found that nearly a third of homeowners took no preparation steps at all last year. A lot of that isn't neglect, it's not knowing where to start."
Among the steps Klosterman highlights is reviewing homeowners insurance coverage once a year, so policyholders aren't caught off guard by what is or isn't included after damage happens. That annual conversation is also, according to the JD Power data, one of the clearest drivers of the client trust that predicts retention, and most homeowners aren't initiating it on their own.
