Little-Known Facts About Obtaining Homeowners Insurance For A New Or Used Log Home

Who Insures Log Homes?

The fact of the matter is...

Very few insurance agencies will even provide homeowners coverage for a log home.

Most won't touch it.

Here are the insurance companies that our log home builder and other insurance agents told us to check with:

• Tennessee Farm Bureau Insurance


• State Farm Insurance


• Mid-State Insurance

We got quotes from all three of them, and the prices for homeowners insurance for our log home ranged from $100/mo. (State Farm) to $140/mo. (Farm Bureau). Mid-State hasn't gotten back to us yet.

To be clear, using Farm Bureau for example, the rate would be much less if our log home was less than 5 miles away ($500 less a year) and/or if we also had our auto insurance with them ($300 less a year). For the record our log home is 7 miles away from the nearest fire station, and the private road into our property alone is more than a mile long (and lacks a fire hydrant), so we couldn't qualify for the "fire hydrant less than a mile away" discount.

Homeowner's Insurance For Log Home Owners

the fact of the matter is... log homes are more expensive to insure for a number of reasons.

Reps from various insurance companies have told us that the biggest factors which affect your rate for log home insurance are:
#1 the type of construction (log or not)
#2 the home's proximity to a fire station (less than 5 miles)
#3 the home's proximity to a fire hydrant (less than 1 mile)
#4 the overall value of the home

Comparing Apples To Apples

In our case, our new log home will be approximately double the square footage and double the price of our current home. And, the log home is out in the country where the nearest fire station is 7 miles away.

As a result, the cost of homeowners insurance for our new log home will be 3 times more than what we are paying to insure our current home (...stick-frame, with brick and vinyl siding, in a subdivision with a fire hydrant right across the street, and the nearest fire station less than 1 mile away).

UPDATE: We Found Another Option!

We finally heard back from Mid-State, who acts as a broker for insurance of various types. (Our rep was on vacation.) They found a company that was willing to provide us with a simple builder's risk policy alone -- thus, no homeowner's insurance would be required during the construction phase of our log home. (Yay!)

That company is Zurich. And we were quoted a rate of $665 a year with a $5,000 deductible (our preference). So, we will probably go that route for the year that we are building our home. Then, we'll switch to Farm Bureau or State Farm for homeowner's insurance the following year. (Since they insure log homes.)