Homeowners Insurance Non-Renewal Notice Periods: A 50-State and D.C. Survey

What this covers and as of when

This is a state-by-state survey of the advance written notice a property insurer must give before non-renewing a personal lines homeowners or residential property policy, current as of June 16, 2026. It addresses the non-renewal notice clock, the trigger that starts it (mailing versus delivery versus receipt), the reason-statement requirement, the catastrophe moratoria that suspend non-renewal after declared disasters, and the way mid-term cancellation rules sit alongside non-renewal. Scope is personal residential property: owner-occupied homeowners forms, and dwelling fire forms where the same statute governs. It does not resolve commercial residential (condo association, apartment, habitational) notice, which often runs on a separate clock; it treats mid-term cancellation only as an overlay, not as its own survey; and it excludes surplus lines and the NFIP, which are generally carved out of these provisions. Notice periods are stated in calendar days unless the statute says business days.

The one fact to anchor on

There is no national non-renewal notice period. The floor in most states sits at 30 days, a cluster of states require 45, and a growing group, driven by the catastrophe-market crisis, now require 60 or more. Florida is the national outlier at 120 days for personal residential property under Fla. Stat. § 627.4133(2)(b). The trend since 2020 is unmistakably toward longer notice: California moved from 45 to 75 days, Texas from 30 to 60, and Colorado from 30 to 60, all within the last five years, and the wave has continued — Washington (45 to 60, eff. July 1, 2025), Iowa (30 to 60, eff. Jan. 1, 2025), Georgia (30 to 60, eff. Jan. 1, 2026), Hawaii (30 to 60, eff. Jan. 1, 2026), and Louisiana (30 to 60, eff. July 1, 2026) have all since lengthened their clocks.

How non-renewal differs from cancellation, and why the clock is longer

Cancellation ends coverage mid-term and is tightly cabined: after the initial underwriting window (commonly 60 days), most states allow it only for nonpayment, material misrepresentation, a substantial change in the risk, or a handful of similar grounds, on short notice (often 10 days for nonpayment, 20 to 30 days otherwise). Non-renewal ends coverage at the natural expiration of the term, and the insurer's discretion is broader. The notice period is longer precisely because the insured is being put back into the market and needs runway to replace coverage and satisfy a lender's force-placement clock. That is the policy logic behind the 30-to-120-day spread, and it is why a defective non-renewal notice usually does not void the underwriting decision but instead extends the existing coverage by operation of statute until proper notice runs. Florida's extension provision in § 627.4133(2)(d) and California's in § 678(c)(2) are typical: coverage continues, on the same terms, until the full statutory period elapses from the date notice is actually given.

Two structural features recur and are worth flagging before the table. First, the trigger matters as much as the count. Some statutes run the clock from mailing, some from delivery, and a few states have folded in a mailing-plus-presumption rule. California is the cleanest example of the shift: under § 678(c)(1), for policies expiring on or after July 1, 2020, the insurer must deliver or mail the notice at least 75 days before expiration, and on and after July 1, 2022 the mailing time periods in Code of Civil Procedure § 1013 apply, which adds days for mailed notice. An adjuster computing a deadline off the postmark without checking whether the state runs from mailing or receipt is computing the wrong date. Second, almost every state requires the specific reason for non-renewal in or with the notice, and a reason-less notice is frequently treated as defective.

The five catastrophe states

These five carry the most exposure and the most recent statutory motion, so they are treated against the actual statutes rather than summarized.

Florida

Florida requires 120 days' advance written notice of non-renewal for any personal lines or commercial residential property policy, including homeowners, mobile homeowners, and farmowners, under Fla. Stat. § 627.4133(2)(b), with the reason stated in the notice. The carve-outs are where the work is. A policy non-renewed by Citizens after assumption by an authorized takeout insurer needs only 45 days under subparagraph (2)(b)5. A policy covering both a home and a motor vehicle may be non-renewed on 90 days for any ground applicable to either, under (2)(b)7. And where the Office of Insurance Regulation approves an early-cancellation or non-renewal plan tied to insurer financial distress or hurricane-reinsurance inadequacy, 45 days applies under (2)(b)6. Layered on top is the post-storm moratorium in § 627.4133(2)(e): an insurer may not cancel or non-renew a policy covering a dwelling damaged by a hurricane or wind event that is the subject of a declared emergency for 90 days after the property is repaired, and for other covered perils until the earlier of repair or one year after the final claim payment. If the insurer intends to non-renew after that window, it must give 90 days' notice of intent. Separately, § 627.4133(3) bars using an act-of-God claim as a cause for non-renewal absent a demonstrated failure to mitigate, and § 627.4133(6) bars a single water-damage claim as the sole cause. The 120-day figure reflects the statute as it reads in the 2025 Florida Statutes.

California

California requires 75 days' advance notice of non-renewal for residential property policies under Cal. Ins. Code § 678(c)(1), an increase from the prior 45 days enacted by AB 1816 and applicable to policies expiring on or after July 1, 2020. The notice must state the specific reason and carry a consumer-inquiry phone number. Miss the 75 days and the policy continues on existing terms for 75 days from delivery under (c)(2). Commercial residential sits separately under § 678.1 at not less than 60 and not more than 120 days. The non-renewal clock is then overridden by the wildfire moratorium in Cal. Ins. Code § 675.1, enacted by SB 824 (Ch. 616, Statutes of 2018, operative January 1, 2019): after a Governor's declaration of a state of emergency, an insurer may not cancel or non-renew a residential property policy in any ZIP Code within or adjacent to the fire perimeter for one year from the declaration, based solely on the structure's location in a wildfire area, and total-loss insureds receive additional renewal protection. The Department of Insurance publishes the covered ZIP Codes by bulletin. Following the January 7, 2025 Los Angeles fires, the moratorium attached to the Palisades and Eaton perimeters, and SB 547 extended the same moratorium protection (codified as new Cal. Ins. Code § 675.55, not an amendment to § 675.1) to commercial policyholders effective January 1, 2026.

Louisiana

Louisiana requires 60 days' advance written notice of non-renewal for homeowners policies under La. R.S. 22:1335(A); if the notice is mailed fewer than 60 days before expiration, coverage continues on existing terms until 60 days after mailing or delivery. The reason must be provided (La. R.S. 22:41). The 60-day rule arrives by Act 182 of the 2025 Regular Session (HB 345), which raised the period from 30 days effective July 1, 2026 — so a non-renewal noticed on or before June 30, 2026 still runs on the old 30-day clock. The structural protection that matters more than the count is the three-year rule in La. R.S. 22:1265(D): once a homeowners policy has been in effect and renewed for more than three years, the insurer may not cancel or non-renew it (or raise its deductible) except for nonpayment, fraud, a material change in the risk, two or more claims within a continuous three-year period inside the preceding five years, or a solvency threat. That protection does not apply to an insurer withdrawing from the Louisiana homeowners market entirely, but an insurer that uses the withdrawal exception is barred from writing new homeowners coverage in the state for five years (La. R.S. 22:1265(J)).

Texas

Texas requires 60 days' advance written notice of non-renewal under Tex. Ins. Code § 551.105, raised from 30 days by HB 1900 effective September 1, 2023, and applicable to residential property policies by operation of § 551.102. If the carrier misses the deadline, the policy stays in force until the 61st day after the notice is delivered or mailed. The reason must be stated under § 551.055. For claims handlers, the prior 30-day rule still governs non-renewals noticed before September 1, 2023, so the operative date on the file controls which clock applies.

Colorado

Colorado requires 60 days' advance notice for non-renewal of a homeowners policy under C.R.S. § 10-4-110.7(3), an increase from the prior 30 days, with the reason stated and 10 days' notice permitted for nonpayment cancellation. The general notice-of-intent framework sits in C.R.S. § 10-4-110, and the statute requires insurers to file their underwriting methodologies with the Commissioner.

New York and Georgia

New York runs a distinctive three-year structure under Ins. Law § 3425. A covered personal lines policy, including homeowners, carries a "required policy period," and during that period the insurer may not non-renew except on a ground for which it could have cancelled (§ 3425(e)). After the required policy period, the insurer may non-renew at the end of an annual term only by mailing or delivering notice at least 45 but not more than 60 days before expiration, with the specific reason stated (§ 3425(d)(1)). Late or defective notice extends the renewal right. The 45-to-60-day window, confirmed by the Department of Financial Services, is both a floor and a ceiling, which is unusual and a common compliance trap for carriers that calendar only the minimum.

Georgia requires non-renewal notice for residential property policies not less than 60 days (raised from 30 by 2025 Ga. SB 35 / Act 277, effective Jan. 1, 2026) before the non-renewal effective date under O.C.G.A. § 33-24-46, delivered by first-class mail with proof of mailing, with the reason provided under Title 33, Chapter 39. A renewal offer or premium notice that the insured fails to pay is not a non-renewal.

The 50-state and D.C. table

The table states the personal residential or homeowners non-renewal notice period and the controlling statute for every state and D.C., current as of June 16, 2026. Periods are calendar days unless noted, and where a state sets a range or a recent change carries its own effective date, the cell says so. This is a research aid, not a compliance opinion: pull the cited statute in its current form before relying on any row in a filing or a claim file, because session laws and regulatory amendments move these numbers, and several did in 2025 and 2026.

The pattern that matters for portfolio planning: the longest clocks (Florida at 120, Kentucky at 75, California at 75) and the floor-and-ceiling states (New York) concentrate compliance risk, and the recent upward movers (California, Texas, Colorado, Washington, Iowa, Georgia, Hawaii, and Louisiana) mean that any non-renewal program calendared before 2023 against the old periods is now out of date.

The 2023 to 2026 non-renewal wave

The notice periods above are being applied at a volume the personal property market has not seen in decades, and the longer clocks are themselves a regulatory response to that volume. The pressure has three distinct geographies.

In Florida, the story is insolvency and retrenchment followed by a partial rebound. More than a half-dozen Florida property insurers were declared insolvent across 2021 and 2022 (seven, by FIGA's count — Gulfstream, St. Johns, Avatar, Lighthouse, Southern Fidelity, Weston, and FedNat — with UPC following in early 2023), Citizens Property Insurance Corporation swelled past well over a million policies as the insurer of last resort (about 1.05 million by September 2022, peaking near 1.42 million in October 2023), and carriers leaned on the § 627.4133 machinery, including the Office-approved early non-renewal provision in (2)(b)6, to shed wind-exposed risk. The 2022 and 2023 special-session reforms (including the litigation changes in ch. 2022-271 and the broader tort changes in 2023) were aimed at stabilizing the market rather than the notice clock itself, but the 120-day period and the post-storm moratorium in (2)(e), extended expressly to Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole damage, became the operative constraints on how fast carriers could exit. By 2025 and into 2026 the depopulation of Citizens and new entrants suggested stabilization, but the non-renewal notice file remained the front line of the cleanup.

In California, the § 675.1 moratorium collided head-on with carrier withdrawal. Through 2023 and 2024 several large national carriers paused or restricted new homeowners writing in the state, citing wildfire exposure and the inability to use catastrophe modeling and reinsurance costs in rate filings. The Commissioner's Sustainable Insurance Strategy, the new catastrophe-modeling and reinsurance-cost regulations finalized through 2024 and 2025, and the FAIR Plan's growth are the backdrop. When the January 7, 2025 Los Angeles fires hit, the § 675.1 one-year moratorium attached automatically to the Palisades and Eaton ZIP Codes, and the Department issued bulletins freezing non-renewals there, with the Commissioner separately urging a voluntary pause on pending non-renewals across the affected communities. SB 547's extension of moratorium protection to commercial policyholders effective January 1, 2026 widened the freeze. The practical effect: in California's highest-risk ZIP Codes, the non-renewal notice an underwriter wants to send is often legally unsendable for a year.

In Louisiana, the post-Laura, Delta, and Ida insolvencies drove a parallel collapse, with multiple carriers failing and the Louisiana Citizens residual market absorbing the overflow. The three-year rule in § 22:1265(D) and the five-year market-reentry bar in (J) shaped how carriers could exit, and the Legislature's 2023 and 2024 sessions added incentive funds and the § 1265 amendments to lure capacity back, with the 2025 session (Act 182 / HB 345) then extending most cancellation and non-renewal notice to 60 days effective July 1, 2026. Across the Gulf and Southeast, the through-line is the same: statutory non-renewal limits and post-disaster moratoria are now doing real work as the binding constraint on how quickly a carrier can reprice or exit a book.

What this changes by role

For coverage counsel, the highest-value defensive and offensive points are the defective-notice extension provisions and the catastrophe moratoria. A non-renewal that omits the statutorily required reason, runs from the wrong trigger date, or is sent during a § 675.1 or § 627.4133(2)(e) freeze is vulnerable, and in most states the remedy is continued coverage by operation of statute rather than mere damages. In a first-party loss that falls in the gap the insurer thought it had closed by non-renewal, that distinction decides the claim, and where the carrier's conduct crosses into unreasonable denial it can open a bad-faith exposure on top of the coverage question.

For underwriting and rate filings, the longer clocks change the mechanics of an exit. A book that an actuary wants out of in Florida cannot be repriced or shed faster than 120 days per policy, and in California's emergency ZIP Codes not at all for a year. That lead time has to be modeled into withdrawal plans, reinsurance treaty timing, and the financial-distress provisions (Florida's (2)(b)6, Louisiana's withdrawal exception with its five-year reentry bar) that trade faster exit for regulatory strings. Treating non-renewal as an instantaneous lever is a filing-level error.

For claims handling and reserving, the operative discipline is calendaring the correct trigger and watching the moratorium overlay. Compute the deadline from mailing or delivery as the specific state directs, add the mailing-presumption days where they apply (California after July 1, 2022), and confirm no declared-disaster freeze attaches to the risk's ZIP Code before any non-renewal is processed. Where a policy was damaged in a declared event, the post-storm moratorium can keep a policy the carrier intended to drop on the books, and on the risk, well past the nominal expiration, which is a reserving fact, not a footnote.

Case law

Two decisions, both directly on homeowners non-renewal, frame the litigation exposure. This is a statute-driven area, so the case count is deliberately short; padding it would add nothing.

In Deer v. National General Insurance Co., 353 Conn. 262 (2025), the Connecticut Supreme Court held that an insurance broker owes no duty to convey the insurer's non-renewal notice to the insured after the broker has procured the policy, absent an affirmative agreement or assurance to assist with renewal, and that the broker is entitled to rely on the insurer to meet its own statutory and contractual non-renewal-notice obligations. The procedural posture matters: this is an affirmance of summary judgment for the broker, decided on certified appeal, with two justices dissenting, so it is controlling authority in Connecticut on where the notice duty sits. The practical lesson travels well beyond Connecticut: when a homeowner claims they never received a non-renewal notice, the statutory duty runs to the insurer, and producer-based theories will struggle without proof of an assumed renewal duty.

In Hinkle v. National Casualty Insurance Co., 354 S.C. 92, 579 S.E.2d 616 (2003), the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed a jury verdict on a "negligent non-renewal" theory, holding that, absent a contractual or statutory obligation, an insurer has no duty to renew, and that the only candidate source of duty, S.C. Code § 38-75-790 (barring non-renewal of a homeowners policy because the insured filed a claim for act-of-God damage), could not support the verdict where the insureds had withdrawn their statutory claim at trial. The posture is a reversal of a jury verdict on a directed-verdict and JNOV record, so it carries full weight in South Carolina. Two enduring points: there is no free-standing duty to renew, and § 38-75-790's act-of-God protection (a close cousin of Florida's § 627.4133(3) and Louisiana's act-of-God carve-out in § 22:1265) is the kind of claim-based non-renewal bar that recurs across the catastrophe states.

Contrary to any clean narrative that statutory notice provisions always rescue the insured, Hinkle is a reminder that the protections are only as broad as the statute, and that a withdrawn or unpleaded statutory theory leaves the insured with nothing, because the baseline rule is no duty to renew. Counsel on both sides should expect the fight to be about whether a specific statutory bar or notice defect applies, not about a general entitlement to renewal.

Settled versus open

What is settled: the existence and length of the notice period in each jurisdiction is a matter of statute, and the defective-notice-extends-coverage remedy is the dominant approach. What remains contested or jurisdiction-specific: whether a particular communication (a verbal heads-up, a conditional renewal, a premium-increase notice) constitutes a non-renewal triggering the clock; the precise interaction between a catastrophe moratorium and a non-renewal noticed before the declaration; and the availability of bad-faith or statutory damages, as opposed to continued coverage, for a botched non-renewal. Those are the questions that will generate the next wave of appellate law as the 2023 to 2026 non-renewal volume works through the courts.

Sources

Every jurisdiction's controlling statute is linked to its official government source in the 50-state table above. The references below are the primary sources for the catastrophe-state and narrative sections.

Primary statutes and regulations

1. Fla. Stat. § 627.4133 — Notice of cancellation, nonrenewal, or renewal premium: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0600-0699/0627/Sections/0627.4133.html
2. Cal. Ins. Code § 678 (non-renewal notice): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=INS&sectionNum=678
3. Cal. Ins. Code § 678.1 (commercial non-renewal): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=INS&sectionNum=678.1
4. Cal. Ins. Code § 675.1 (wildfire moratorium; SB 824): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=INS&sectionNum=675.1
5. Cal. Ins. Code § 675.55 (commercial moratorium; SB 547): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=INS&sectionNum=675.55
6. La. R.S. 22:1335 — Homeowner's insurance; cancellation; nonrenewal: https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=510627
7. La. Acts 2025, No. 182 (HB 345) — 60-day notice, eff. 7/1/2026: https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=25RS&b=HB345
8. La. R.S. 22:1265 — cancellation and nonrenewal; three-year rule: https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=510557
9. Tex. Ins. Code ch. 551, incl. § 551.105 (HB 1900): https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/IN/htm/IN.551.htm
10. C.R.S. § 10-4-110.7 — Cancellation or nonrenewal, homeowner's policies (official CRS, Title 10, § 10-4-110.7 at p. 360): https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2023-title-10.pdf
11. N.Y. Ins. Law § 3425 — personal lines cancellation and renewal: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ISC/3425
12. O.C.G.A. § 33-24-46 — cancellation or nonrenewal of property policies (SB 35 / Act 277), official O.C.G.A. via the Georgia General Assembly: https://www.legis.ga.gov/laws/code
13. HRS § 431:10-226.5 — non-renewal notice (60 days; Act 110 / SB 752, eff. 1/1/2026): https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessions/session2025/bills/SB752_CD1_.htm
14. Minn. Stat. § 65A.29 — homeowner's nonrenewal (60 days): https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/65A.29
15. Alaska Stat. § 21.36.240 — failure to renew (20 days personal lines): https://www.akleg.gov/basis/statutes.asp#21.36.240
16. RCW 48.18.2901 — renewal required (60 days; SB 5798): https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=48.18.2901
17. Iowa Code § 515.129B — nonrenewal notice (60 days; HF 2265): https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/515.129B.pdf
18. N.D.C.C. § 26.1-39-16 — nonrenewal of property policies (45 days): https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t26-1c39.pdf
19. 31 Pa. Code ch. 59 (§ 59.6) and 40 P.S. § 1171.5 — homeowners nonrenewal (30 days): https://www.pacodeandbulletin.gov/Display/pacode?file=/secure/pacode/data/031/chapter59/chap59toc.html

Regulator materials

1. California Department of Insurance, Mandatory One-Year Moratorium on Non-Renewals: https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/140-catastrophes/MandatoryOneYearMoratoriumNonRenewals.cfm
2. California Department of Insurance, 2026 Notice on Significant California Laws Pertaining to Residential Property Insurance During a Declared State of Emergency: https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0250-insurers/0300-insurers/0200-bulletins/bulletin-notices-commiss-opinion/upload/2026-Notice-Significant-California-Laws-Pertaining-to-Residential-Property-Insurance-Policies-Declared-State-of-Emergency.pdf
3. New York DFS, Cancellations and Non-Renewals (homeowners): https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/help_for_homeowners/insurance/cancellations_and_nonrenewals

Case opinions

1. Deer v. National General Ins. Co., 353 Conn. 262 (2025): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10666781/deer-v-national-general-ins-co/
2. Hinkle v. National Casualty Ins. Co., 354 S.C. 92, 579 S.E.2d 616 (2003): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1304978/hinkle-v-national-casualty-insurance/