Is home insurance cheaper on new homes? What the age of your house changes in Texas

Two houses on the same street, same square footage, same ZIP code. One was built in 2023, the other in 1968. The quotes come back different, and the obvious explanation is the obvious one: the old house costs more to insure.

That's mostly right, but it's right for a reason worth understanding, because the reason is also the fix. In Texas, the age of your house is a rating factor — insurers may charge for it. Age by itself is not an eligibility factor — insurers may not refuse you for it. What gets people refused is condition: specifically the roof, the wiring, the heating, the air conditioning, and the plumbing. Those are the things a 1968 house is more likely to have a problem with, and they are also the things you can do something about.

This guide covers what Texas rules actually say about the age of your home, which factors move the price, why the roof does more work than everything else combined, what happens to your rebuild figure on an older house, and the specific protection Texas law gives you after a water leak — plus a checklist for your own policy. Coverage varies by policy and by company, so what any individual policy does depends on its own terms.

The short answer

A newer home isn't automatically cheaper, and an older home isn't automatically expensive. Age is one of a handful of things insurers price, and it usually pulls in the same direction as several others that happen to travel with it — an older roof, older systems, and a house built to an older building code.

Where age genuinely stops mattering is in the yes-or-no decision. The Texas Department of Insurance puts it plainly in its home insurance guide: "Companies can't turn you down just because of your home's age or value, but they can charge you more."

That sentence is doing two jobs. Understanding both is the whole point of this page.

The rule behind that sentence

The rule is 28 Texas Administrative Code §21.1006, titled Prohibition Against Declining to Write Residential Property Insurance Based on the Age or Value of the Property. It does three things:

  1. An insurer may not decline to write residential property insurance based on the age of the property.
  2. An insurer may not decline to write it based on a minimum value of the property — so a modest house isn't disqualified for being modest.
  3. Neither prohibition stops an insurer from declining based on the physical condition of the property, and the rule names the conditions it has in mind: wiring, heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and roofing.

Read those together and you get the practical rule of thumb for an older Texas home: the year on the deed is not the problem; the five things in that list are the problem. An insurer who says "we don't write houses built before 1970" is describing something the rule doesn't allow. An insurer who says "we can't write this house with a 24-year-old roof and knob-and-tube wiring" is describing something the rule expressly permits.

That's a much more useful conversation to be in, because four of those five items are things you can inspect, document, or replace.

What actually moves the price

TDI lists the factors most companies use to set what you pay for home insurance:

Its home insurance guide adds condition to the list — "Most companies consider these things when deciding on your premium: Your home's age and condition" — and one more factor that quietly matters a great deal on older Texas houses: "Construction materials. Premiums are higher for houses built completely of wood. They're lower for houses built of brick or stone."

Notice how few of these are actually about the calendar. Where you live doesn't change with age. Your claim history and credit don't change with age. The cost to replace your house is about materials and labor today, not the build date. Of the six, only two are age-linked — the home's age and the roof's age — and one of those two, the roof, is replaceable.

This is why blanket statements about new versus old homes don't survive contact with real quotes. A 1968 brick house with a two-year-old roof, updated panel, and repiped supply lines can present as a very different risk from a 1968 wood-frame house with the original everything. Same age, different answer.

The roof does most of the work

If you only fix one thing on this page, make it the roof — not because roofs are expensive (they are), but because the roof is where age changes your coverage and not just your price.

TDI's guidance on roofs and insurance says it in three short sentences worth reading carefully:

TDI's renewal checklist makes the same point about timing: "When your roof reaches a certain age, your insurance company might switch your policy from replacement cost coverage to actual cash coverage." It also tells you to check the inputs: "Make sure the age of your house, square footage, construction type (siding or brick), and roof age are correct."

Here's why that switch matters more than a premium difference:

Example (illustrative). Suppose a hailstorm damages your roof and replacing it costs $18,000 today. Your wind and hail deductible works out to $6,000. Under replacement cost coverage on the roof, the settlement for that covered claim is calculated from today's cost, less your deductible. Under actual cash value, the insurer first subtracts depreciation for the roof's age and wear, and then your deductible comes off the depreciated figure — so on an older roof, the gap between the check and the contractor's estimate can be several times the deductible itself. The numbers here are an illustration to show the mechanics, not a quote; your policy's terms, limits, and deductible decide the actual result.

Two policies can both say they cover wind and hail and leave you in completely different financial shape after the same storm. On an older Texas home, "is my roof at replacement cost or actual cash value?" is the single highest-value question you can ask your agent. Our guide to how the wind and hail deductible works in Texas walks through the deductible half of the same math.

Rebuild cost, not market value — and the code problem

Older homes create a second, less obvious issue: the number your policy is built on.

TDI's guide draws the basic distinction — "Replacement cost coverage pays to repair or replace your house and personal property at current prices", while "Actual cash value coverage pays replacement cost minus depreciation" — and one of the factors it lists for pricing is "the cost to replace your house." That figure is what it would cost to rebuild, using today's labor and materials. It is not what the house would sell for, and on an older home the two numbers can diverge sharply in either direction.

Then there's the code problem, which is specific to older buildings. A house built to a 1968 code and damaged in 2026 generally has to be rebuilt to the code in force now — different wiring standards, different attachment requirements, sometimes different structural details. That's extra cost created by the age of the original construction, and a base policy may not pick it all up.

Texas policies commonly offer endorsements for exactly this. TDI's guide lists, among coverages you can add, "Extra construction or repair costs to meet local building codes" and "Extra construction costs if your policy doesn't pay enough to rebuild your home." Whether either is on your policy today, and at what limit, is a question with a specific answer sitting on your declarations page.

Coastal owners have one more layer: TDI notes that some coastal homeowners "might need a home inspection by an engineer or a windstorm inspector," and an older coastal structure is exactly the kind that inspection scrutinizes.

Old plumbing, water leaks, and a protection you may not know you have

Of the five conditions §21.1006 lets an insurer decline for, plumbing is the one that most often shows up as a claim rather than an inspection note. Supply lines, water heaters, and appliance hoses age, and a water claim on your record can affect what you're offered next time.

Texas law limits how far that can be held against you. Insurance Code §544.351 states the purpose directly: to protect people and property "from being unfairly stigmatized in obtaining residential property insurance by the filing of a water damage claim or claims under a residential property insurance policy."

The operative protection is in §544.353(c). An insurer may not use a prior appliance-related claim as a basis for setting your rate, or for deciding "whether to issue, renew, or cancel an insurance policy," if you:

"(1) properly remediated the prior appliance-related claim; and (2) had the remediation inspected and certified by a person or entity knowledgeable and experienced in the remediation of water damage."

Subsection (d) extends the same protection to the property rather than the person, which matters when you buy an older house that had a leak under a previous owner. The statute defines "appliance" broadly — "a household device operated by gas or electric current, including hoses directly attached to the device," and the term "includes air conditioning units, heating units, refrigerators, dishwashers, icemakers, clothes washers, water heaters, and disposals."

There is a limit, in §544.353(e): the protection doesn't apply to "a person who has made and has received payment for three or more appliance-related claims within a three-year period," or to a property that's been the subject of three or more such claims in three years.

The practical takeaway is a filing habit: after a water leak, get the remediation done properly, get it inspected and certified, and keep that certificate. On an older home it's one of the few documents that can stop a past claim from following you.

So — is a new home cheaper to insure?

Often, and for reasons you can now name rather than guess at: a newer roof, newer wiring and plumbing, systems within their expected life, and construction to a current code. Those are the things carriers price and underwrite, and they tend to line up in a new build's favor.

But "usually" isn't "always," and the factors that don't move with age can dominate. A brand-new house in a hail-prone county, insured for a high rebuild cost, may cost more to insure than an older, smaller, brick house elsewhere in the state — because "where you live" and "the cost to replace your house" are on TDI's factor list too, and neither cares what year the house went up. Two owners can also get different answers on identical houses because claim history and credit are on that list as well.

What the age of the house reliably changes is how much attention the condition items deserve. On a new build, the roof-coverage question is easy. On a 1968 house, it's the question.

What to do with this

Key facts

Sources: 28 Texas Administrative Code §21.1006 (Prohibition Against Declining to Write Residential Property Insurance Based on the Age or Value of the Property). Texas Insurance Code — Chapter 544, Subchapter H, Water Damage Claims (§§544.351–544.354). Texas Department of Insurance — Home insurance guide (cb025), How are your auto and homeowners insurance costs calculated?, Insurance and your roof, Is your home policy up for renewal?. Rating and underwriting practices vary by company, and what any individual policy covers depends on its own terms, limits, and exclusions. This page is general information, not legal advice.

Take the next step

The useful thing about an older Texas house is that the rules point straight at the work. Age is off-limits as a reason to refuse you, and every item that is on the list — roof, wiring, heating, air conditioning, plumbing — is something you can inspect, document, or fix. That turns a vague worry about the house being old into a short, concrete list.

Start with the declarations page. Confirm the roof age is right, find out whether the roof is at replacement cost or actual cash value, and check whether code-upgrade coverage is there. If the answers surprise you, that's the moment to look at what else is available — before the next storm, not after it. Our guides to how to choose home insurance in Texas and what to do after a non-renewal cover the next steps in each direction.

Credify is a licensed insurance agency in Texas (License #: 3309669). If your home is older and you want to know how a different carrier would look at its roof and systems, we compare quotes from multiple licensed Texas carriers in one short form, with no obligation; each insurer has sole responsibility for its own products. 📞 Talk to Credify 24/7.

Compare home insurance quotes from 19 carriers at credify.com/compare — or talk to Credify 24/7: (512) 640-2609.

Credify is a licensed insurance agency in Texas (License #3309669 · NPN 21516523).