Vermont is filled with older historic homes in addition to a growing inventory of new houses. These houses can be vulnerable to a range of natural disasters common to the area, such as tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and snowstorms. Whether you live in the historic town of Manchester or near the Canadian border, purchasing a homeowners insurance policy is the best way to protect your home from these unpredictable events.
The This Old House Reviews team researched dozens of providers to determine the best home insurance companies in Vermont. We also included a few sample quotes for homes in various cities throughout the state to give you an idea of home insurance pricing.
Ultimately, we encourage readers to call 855-948-5219 or use the online quote tool below to get started with a custom home insurance quote:
Vermont’s Top 3 Home Insurance Companies
- State Farm: Best Endorsements
- Liberty Mutual: Best Discounts
- Travelers: Most Experience
State Farm: Best Endorsements
With a 96.6 out of 100, State Farm is at the top of our list for its performance in customer service, unique features, and reputation, but it stands out most for its additional coverage options. Policyholders can add coverage for water backup, earthquake protection, identity theft restoration, loss assessment for homes under an HOA, energy efficiency upgrades, home systems protection, and service line coverage.
Additionally, State Farm’s local agents can offer even more protection for items like home rental coverage, business liability, off-premises structures coverage, and vacant home coverage.
Here are a few more State Farm benefits:
- Connects each customer to a local agent during the quote process
- Offers a generous home and auto insurance bundle discount up to 35% (based on the sample quotes we received)
- Includes extra coverage for firearms, silverware, and fire department service fees
State Farm Sample Pricing
| City (ZIP code) | Burlington (05408) | Middlebury (05753) | Manchester (05255) |
|---|---|---|---|
| House square footage | 1,600 | 1,300 | 2,300 |
| Year built | 1950 | 1967 | 1988 |
| Dwelling limit | $242,000 | $250,000 | $300,000 |
| Personal property coverage | 75% of dwelling | 75% of dwelling | 75% of dwelling |
| Liability coverage | $300,000 | $100,000 | $300,000 |
| All-peril deductible | $2,000 | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Wind/hail deductible | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Monthly premium | $69.66 | $79.16 | $97.16 |
Learn More: State Farm Homeowners Insurance Review
*AM Best ratings accurate as of August 2023
Not far behind State Farm, Liberty Mutual scored a 95.1 out of 100 in our review, impressing us with its discount options. Some examples of potential discounts include savings for protective devices, such as home security systems, fire alarms, fire sprinklers, and water detection equipment, a discount for fully insuring your home up to its estimated value, a claims-free history discount, a discount for bundling with car insurance, and a discount for 10% off your premium just for purchasing your policy online.
Get access to the instant 10% savings by getting a quote and signing up for your policy on the company’s website.
Liberty Mutual also features the following benefits:
- Includes inflation protection, which automatically increases your coverage limits each year to keep up with inflation and ensure your home is fully covered
- Has a mobile app for policy management and claims
- Features an online chat during the quote process
Liberty Mutual Sample Pricing
| City (ZIP code) | Burlington (05408) | Middlebury (05753) | Manchester (05255) |
|---|---|---|---|
| House square footage | 1,600 | 1,300 | 2,300 |
| Year built | 1950 | 1967 | 1988 |
| Dwelling limit | $225,000 | $250,000 | $300,000 |
| Personal property coverage | 75% of dwelling | 75% of dwelling | 75% of dwelling |
| Liability coverage | $300,000 | $100,000 | $300,000 |
| All-peril deductible | $1,500 | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Wind/hail deductible | $1,500 | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Hurricane deductible | $1,500 | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Monthly premium | $77.00 | $108.00 | $150.00 |
Get Your Free Home Insurance Quote: Liberty Mutual Quote
Learn More: Liberty Mutual Homeowners Insurance Review
Scoring a 93.6 out of 100, Travelers is one of the oldest companies in the industry, bringing expertise and trustworthiness to customers. Travelers has built a strong reputation for more than 160 years, and it has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and an A++ (superior) financial strength rating from AM Best.
In addition to its extensive experience, Travelers offers impressive deductible options ranging from $1,000 to $50,000 for homeowners in Vermont who want to customize their premium. It also features a Decreasing Deductible benefit, which helps lower out-of-pocket expenses by crediting your account with $100 towards your deductible each year you don’t file a claim. With no cap on this feature, you could spend as little as $0 on your next claim.
Visit Travelers’ website to get an instant quote.
We were also impressed with Travelers for the following reasons:
- Provides an add-on for equipment breakdown, which covers necessary repairs or replacements on systems and appliances after a mechanical or electrical failure
- Offers the Additional Coverage Package, which increases your replacement cost coverage and adds coverage for items like refrigerated property and personal injury
- Includes more personal property coverage options than the other providers in this review
| City (ZIP code) | Burlington (05408) | Middlebury (05753) | Manchester (05255) |
|---|---|---|---|
| House square footage | 1,600 | 1,300 | 2,300 |
| Year built | 1950 | 1967 | 1988 |
| Dwelling limit | $225,000 | $210,000 | $300,000 |
| Personal property coverage | 75% of dwelling | 75% of dwelling | 75% of dwelling |
| Liability coverage | $300,000 | $100,000 | $300,000 |
| All-peril deductible | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Wind/hail deductible | $1,500 | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Monthly premium | $62.23 | $73.22 | $114.95 |
Get Your Free Home Insurance Quote: Travelers Quote
Learn More: Travelers Homeowners Insurance Review
Our Conclusion
After evaluating your coverage needs, let your priorities guide your choice on home insurance in Vermont. Look to State Farm for its add-on options, Liberty Mutual for the most discount opportunities, and Travelers for a trustworthy provider with many years of experience.
We recommend getting quotes from at least three providers to compare insurance rates based on your information, since quoted premiums vary greatly depending on your home’s location, age, construction type, size, and other factors.
Compare Homeowners Insurance Companies in Vermont
Vermont Homeowners Insurance Coverage
A homeowners insurance policy includes the following six coverage types to keep your home fully protected from unexpected events:
- Dwelling coverage—This covers the structure of your home when it needs to be repaired, rebuilt, or replaced after a covered peril. For instance, your provider will pay up to your dwelling limit if your home burns down from a fire. Your coverage limit for this category is typically equal to 100% or more of your house’s total estimated value to ensure it will be returned to its original state during a claim.
- Other structures coverage—Since your dwelling coverage is specifically set aside for your home’s primary structure, this category helps pay for any necessary repairs or rebuilding to external structures that aren’t a part of your house’s dwelling, such as a fence or backyard shed. The coverage limit for this should be around 10% of your dwelling limit, but we recommend increasing that if you have multiple external structures on your property.
- Personal property coverage—When your personal belongings are lost, damaged, ruined, stolen, or vandalized, your provider will pay for their replacement or reimburse you for their depreciated value. The limit for this coverage type is usually around 60%–75%, but Travelers lets you lower it to 25% to save money on your premium. For the most comprehensive coverage, you can pay extra for your policy to cover the replacement cost. Travelers also includes replacement cost in standard quotes, making it a good option for those with older items.
- Personal liability coverage—This pays for any medical costs or legal fees that could arise when you’re responsible for an accident or injury to a guest on your property. Coverage for this type is customizable, but the limit typically falls around $100,000–$300,000. We suggest purchasing more coverage if you plan on having people over regularly to ensure you’re fully covered when something happens.
- Medical payments to others coverage—This coverage type pays for medical costs associated with an injury to someone else on your property when you’re not the one responsible. For instance, if a guest hurts themselves in your kitchen, you could file a claim with your provider to pay for their doctor bills up to the agreed amount, which is typically around $1,000–$5,000. For extra coverage in this category, State Farm and Travelers both offer a high coverage option of $10,000.
- Loss of use coverage—When you file a claim on your damaged home and it’s deemed unlivable by the insurer until repaired or rebuilt, your loss of use coverage will pay for additional living expenses that may arise while you’re staying away from your property, such as hotel fees or meal costs. Limits for this category are typically around 10%–20% of your dwelling amount.
Factors To Consider Before Buying Homeowners Insurance
Before purchasing a policy, here are a few factors that could impact your coverage and premiums:
- Home value—Understand your home’s overall value before purchasing home insurance in Vermont, since that’s the amount of dwelling coverage necessary to fully protect your house. If your dwelling coverage is lower than your home’s value, you could be forced to live with unfinished repairs or pay thousands of dollars out of pocket during a claim. The providers in this review each offer useful home value estimation tools on their websites, but hiring a professional appraiser can help you get the best estimate for how much dwelling coverage you need.
- Endorsements—Also known as add-ons, riders, or floaters, endorsements are additional coverage options offered by home insurance providers. For example, State Farm offers identity theft protection as an add-on and Travelers has equipment breakdown coverage for when your home systems and appliances breakdown from a mechanical or electrical failure.
- Deductible—A deductible is the amount you owe during a claim before your home insurance coverage kicks in. For example, if your deductible is $2,000 and you file a claim for $20,000 in repairs, your provider will pay $18,000 after you pay the deductible. Wind and hail deductibles apply to claims from damage related to wind or hail, whereas all-peril deductibles apply to other scenarios.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our Rating Methodology
The This Old House Reviews Team is committed to providing comprehensive and unbiased reviews to our readers. This means earning your trust through transparency and having the data to back up our ratings and recommendations.
With that in mind, we created an objective rating system to score each home insurance company. Here’s what that review process looked like:
- We analyze the information on each company’s website. This allows us to determine what products and services are offered by each home insurance provider.
- We get a sample quote from the companies by either talking to a sales representative or by using the online quote tool. This tells us what a policy looks like and costs.
- We test customer service by talking to a company representative, finding out their hours of operation, and determining what technological features are available for customers.
- We update all of this information on a continuous basis, storing it in a proprietary database that allows us to compare dozens of home insurance companies against each other.
With this data, we created a rating methodology to score each home insurance company. Our rating system is a weighted, 100-point scale based on the following factors:
- Coverage (30): We rated home insurance companies higher if they offered the six main types of homeowner protection—dwelling, other structures, personal property, loss of use, liability, and medical payments to others coverage.
- State availability (7.5): Companies scored higher if they covered more states than their competitors.
- Customer service (15): This factor is based on our communications with the company representatives, as well as the companies’ claims and quotes processes, availability throughout the week, and customer service information found on their websites.
- Technology (12.5): Technology can increase the efficiency of filing and tracking home insurance claims. Companies scored higher if they had technology options like mobile apps and online chat functions.
- Reputation (20): We gauged trustworthiness based on years of experience and Better Business Bureau ratings.
- Additional benefits (15): Companies that offered optional features, like discounts and endorsements, scored higher than competitors that didn’t.
The This Old House Reviews Team has a full-time researcher who collects and regularly updates data points from every company to help us compare them on key factors such as coverage, service, and dependability.
To share feedback or ask a question about this article, send a note to our Reviews Team at reviews@thisoldhousereviews.com.