Reported: a record 6,200 New Mexico homes lost their insurance last year
Reported: a record 6,200 New Mexico homes lost their insurance last year
2026-09-15 · New Mexico · Regulation · Reported — unconfirmed
Reported: New Mexico's Superintendent of Insurance told the Legislative Finance Committee that national insurers refused to renew more than 6,200 New Mexico homeowner policies in 2025 — the highest number ever recorded in the state, and nearly triple the roughly 2,200 recorded in 2021. The figures were reported from that presentation rather than published as a regulatory document, and are described here on that basis.1
Where the pressure is concentrated
The counties named as most exposed are reported as the wildfire-exposed north rather than the population centres. A caution on that point: two published accounts of the same presentation give different county lists, with Taos the only county common to both. Until the underlying data call is published, no county list from this presentation should be treated as settled — the trend is solid, the geography is not.
The regulator's own published figures
The underlying trend is documented in OSI's own material, which is a primary source rather than a report of a presentation. Its July 2025 release records “over 10,000 homeowners non-renewals in New Mexico from the top 10 insurers” between January 1, 2021 and July 1, 2024, and states: “13 percent of New Mexico properties are uninsured. This is the second highest rate in the country behind Mississippi.”2
The same release describes the state's response: increased FAIR Plan residential limits “from $350,000 to $750,000,” and “the $10 million in grants currently available to help people mitigate their homes.”
Why a non-renewal statistic is a budget instruction for a board
For an association anywhere in New Mexico's wildfire-exposed country, the base case for the next master-policy renewal is no longer “a rate increase.” It is “we may not be renewed.” Those are different planning problems. A rate increase is a budget line; a non-renewal is a search, conducted under time pressure, in a market that has already declined the risk once.
Two board actions follow directly, and both have to start months before the renewal date.
Chase the mitigation grant money — it is common-element work
The mitigation items the state's $10 million grant programme funds are the ones that change how a property underwrites: clearing trees near structures, vent screening, more flame-resistant roofing.
In a community association, most of that is work the association controls, not work individual owners can do. Defensible space around common-element buildings, the vegetation regime on common land, and the roofing specification for buildings the association insures are all board decisions. An association is frequently the only party able to make the change that would improve every owner's insurability — and, in an association whose covenants require particular landscaping or roofing materials, the only party able to permit an owner to make it.
That last point deserves a board's attention. A covenant that mandates a particular roof material or a particular planting scheme can be the obstacle to the mitigation an insurer wants to see. Reviewing the architectural standards against the mitigation criteria is a cheap exercise with a direct underwriting payoff.
Get a producer working early
If the association ends up at the FAIR Plan, the entry requirements have a lead time. All new business applications must be submitted by a licensed producer, and the producer must sign an affidavit confirming a declination from the voluntary market — at application and again at renewal. And during an active wildfire, applications are suspended until the fire is at least 90 percent contained.
An association that starts looking for cover after a non-renewal letter arrives in fire season has arrived at the worst point in every one of those processes.
What the FAIR Plan will not do
Worth restating whenever this market is discussed, because it is the most commonly missed fact in it: the FAIR Plan pays actual cash value, not replacement cost, and OSI's own consumer guide states that the plan “does not offer premises liability and liability cannot be added to the policy.” A declaration that obliges the board to insure at replacement cost and to carry general liability is not satisfied by a FAIR Plan policy standing alone.
The figure to watch next
The 2026 non-renewal count, when the Superintendent next presents to the Legislative Finance Committee. The 2025 figure is the record; whether it is a peak or a step is the question a board in the northern counties should want answered before its next renewal cycle.
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