About Nationwide home insurance
Founded as a mutual auto insurance carrier, Nationwide sold its first policy in 1926 and has offered property insurance since 1934. This Fortune 100 company is one of the country’s largest home insurers. Nationwide also offers a wide variety of insurance and financial products, from farm insurance to fixed indexed annuities.
If you’re a high net worth homeowner, Nationwide’s Private Client insurance offers specialized home insurance coverage for equipment breakdown and accidental breakage of expensive items. You can even cash out if your house is destroyed and you don’t want to rebuild — a great perk if you live in a wildfire- or flood-prone area where rebuilding may be illogical, or for anyone who’d prefer to move on after a total loss instead of managing contractors for months.
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Nationwide home insurance rates
Nationwide vs. other home insurance companies
The national average cost of homeowners insurance is $1,935 per year or $161 per month, according to our analysis. Nationwide costs an average of $1,664 per year or $139 per month.
These low rates earned Nationwide a spot in our rating of the cheapest homeowners insurance companies.
Here’s how Nationwide’s annual rates compare to other home insurance companies for $350,000 in dwelling coverage.
Nationwide home insurance coverages
Nationwide home insurance protects you against financial losses from accidents, storms, natural disasters and criminal activity.
A standard homeowners insurance policy, also called an HO-3 policy, will cover the structures on your property, your personal belongings, personal liability and additional living expenses. Here are more details about the broad coverage you’ll get with this type of home insurance policy.
Dwelling coverage
When your house structure gets damaged by a problem covered in your policy — like a fire, home break-in, or bad weather — this is the coverage that will reimburse you for repairs. Your roof, chimney, HVAC system, walls, floors, plumbing and electrical are covered. So are attached structures like a deck, covered patio or garage.
You should have enough dwelling coverage to rebuild your house to its prior condition.
Other structures coverage
Your house might not be the only structure on your land. If you have a carport, gazebo, permanent play structure, shed or fence, other structures coverage pays for repairs to those structures.
Personal property coverage
Personal property coverage pays to repair or replace your belongings if your loss is caused by a problem named in your policy, such as fire or theft. This part of your policy will help you replace everything from curtains and blinds to furniture and TVs after a covered loss.
You may have the option to choose from actual cash value or replacement cost coverage:
- Actual cash value reimburses you for the depreciated value of your personal items at the time of loss.
- Replacement cost reimburses you for the full amount you pay to buy new items that are similar in quality.
Loss of use coverage
If your house is severely damaged by a problem covered by your home insurance, it might not be habitable until it’s fixed or rebuilt. In that situation, loss of use coverage can cover extra costs above your normal spending, like hotel bills and room service or rent and utilities while you live somewhere else.
Also called additional living expense coverage, this coverage prevents you from paying double living expenses — or having to crash with friends or relatives — while your house is being repaired.
Liability coverage
If a friendly game of backyard touch football gets rough and your neighbor’s kid suffers a concussion, you might get served with a lawsuit. Through your homeowners liability coverage, your insurance company will defend you, and if they don’t succeed, they’ll pay the damages — up to your policy limit. Your liability insurance will also cover the injured party’s medical expenses.
You can also turn to your liability coverage if you or someone in your household accidentally damages someone else’s property, such as their fence, and you are responsible for paying for the repairs.
Medical payments to others
Your son’s best friend asks if he can clean your gutters because he’s trying to earn money for college. You say yes — and regret it the second he overreaches and falls off his ladder.
Fortunately, he only has a small fracture in his wrist and his parents won’t sue you. But his ER visit, X-rays and cast cost $4,200, none of which his high-deductible health insurance covers.
You can file a claim with your homeowners policy and your medical payments to others coverage will foot the bill. This coverage pays for a guest’s minor medical expenses — typically up to $5,000 — regardless of who is at fault.
Additional coverages offered
Nationwide offers additional coverage options, to improve your basic coverage for an additional cost.
- Better roof replacement: After a covered loss to your roof that requires a total replacement, this coverage pays for a new roof made from more resilient materials.
- Brand new belongings: This additional coverage is Nationwide’s plain-language way of saying you get replacement cost coverage, which is better than actual cash value coverage.
- Dwelling replacement cost: Will pay up to two times your policy’s limit to rebuild your house after a loss. Other insurers may call it “extended replacement cost.”
- Earthquake insurance: Not included in a standard homeowners insurance policy, earthquake insurance reimburses you for certain losses caused by earthquakes. This will have a separate deductible.
- Equipment breakdown: Reimburses you for repair or replacement if a power surge caused by the electric company fries your appliances (although the electric company may pay for this). Also protects against mechanical, electrical or pressure system breakdowns.
- Flood insurance: Covers damage caused by flooding under a separate policy with its own deductible. Without flood insurance, you will not be covered for any flood-related damage to your house.
- Identity theft: Reimburses you up to $25,000 in identity-theft-related losses. Monitors the dark web for activity related to your identity and helps you deal with the aftermath of an identity theft incident.
- Umbrella insurance: Gives you additional coverage for bodily injury and personal damage to others beyond the liability limits in your homeowners and auto insurance policies. Umbrella insurance makes sense if your assets total more than your other liability limits, making them vulnerable in a liability lawsuit.
- Service line: Reimburses you for covered losses to water, gas and electrical lines on your property, including additional living expenses if you have to stay elsewhere during repairs.
- Valuables plus: Provides extra coverage limits so you’ll be reimbursed more for individual items with a high dollar value such as jewelry and artwork.
- Water backup: Reimburses you for losses related to water or sewage backing up into your home through drain pipes. It also covers damage from an overflowing sump pump.
What Nationwide home insurance covers
Most homeowners purchase a standard HO-3 home insurance policy.
With this type of policy, any problem that damages the structure of your house is covered unless it’s specifically listed as an exclusion in your policy, like floods.
Your personal property is covered if damaged by one of the 16 named problems, or perils, in your policy. These include:
- Fire and lightning.
- Windstorm and hail.
- Explosions.
- Riot or civil commotion.
- Damage caused by aircraft (not your own).
- Damage caused by vehicles (not your own).
- Smoke.
- Vandalism or malicious mischief.
- Theft and home break-in.
- Volcanic eruption.
- Falling objects.
- Weight of snow, sleet or ice.
- Accidental discharge or overflow of water or steam.
- Sudden and accidental tearing apart, cracking or burning.
- Freezing.
- Sudden and accidental damage from electrical current.
What Nationwide home insurance doesn’t cover
Even though an HO-3 policy is called an “all perils” policy, it doesn’t really cover everything.
Whether you choose Nationwide or another insurer, your policy will have a number of named exclusions — things that aren’t covered. Here are a few examples:
- Earth movement: Earthquakes and landslides can seriously damage your house, and without separate coverage, you’ll pay for these losses yourself.
- Flooding: Heavy storms and natural disasters often lead to excess water covering the ground and rising up into your home. You’ll need flood insurance to protect against these losses.
- Fungus: Mold, a type of fungus, is not covered unless it’s caused by sudden and accidental water damage. Even then, your policy may only pay for a portion of mold remediation.
- Mudflow: Mudflow is a major risk to homes near wildfire-charred hillsides, but you’ll need a separate flood insurance policy to protect your investment.
- Neglect: It can be challenging to keep up with all the maintenance a home requires, but it’s an important part of protecting your house. Your insurer could deny a claim by successfully arguing that you could have prevented the damage, but chose not to.
- Water or sewer backup: If water or sewage flows in the wrong direction and ends up in your home, or if your sump pump fails and your basement floods, you won’t be covered by a basic homeowners policy — but you can buy additional coverage for these risks.
- Windstorms (varies by location): Hurricane damage is a major source of expensive losses to homeowners. If you live in a high-risk state or coastal area, you may need a separate policy or an endorsement to cover losses from high winds and hail.
Nationwide home insurance discounts
Do you love getting a deal? See if you might qualify for any of Nationwide’s home insurance discounts.
- Multi-policy: Getting more than one policy from the same insurer can save you money. Nationwide has one of the best home and auto bundles among the companies we analyzed.
- Protective device: Things like smoke detectors, fire alarms and burglar alarms can reduce your chances of experiencing a loss and save you money on premiums.
- Claims free: Filing a claim may raise your rates. Not filing claims can earn you a discount.
- Home renovation credit: Nationwide has a discount for improving heating, cooling, plumbing or electrical systems.
- Roof rating: Your roof is one of the most important structures protecting your property. A newer, sturdier roof could earn you a discount — and make it less likely that you’ll need to file a claim.
- Home purchase: Bought a new home in the last 12 months? Nationwide wants your business and will offer you a home purchase discount.
- Prior insurance: Are you a new Nationwide customer who stayed with your previous insurer for many years? Nationwide may give you a discount. It’s basically an extra incentive to switch.
- Gated community: Nationwide may give you a discount if you live in a community or neighborhood that has 24/7 security guards, residence cards or key-lock devices.
- Smart home: If you live in one of the 28 states where this discount is available, you could save on home insurance by installing water leak detectors, temperature sensors, window and door sensors and smoke and carbon monoxide alarm sensors from Notion and connecting them to Notion’s monitoring app.
Nationwide customer reviews and complaints
Nationwide has a very low rate of customer complaints, according to information the National Association of Insurance Commissioners has compiled from state databases.