While homeowners insurance isn’t required by law, that doesn’t mean you should forget about it. Actually, most mortgage lenders require it, meaning you’ll have to get a policy if you’re taking out a mortgage to buy your new home.

Here are some interesting facts about the claims home-owners make:*

• About 5% of insured homes have a claim every year.

• About 1 in 40 insured homes have a property damage claim related to wind or hail each year.

• About 2% of insured homes have a property damage claim caused by water damage or freezing every year.

• About 1 in 365 insured homes has a property damage claim related to fire and lightning.

• About 1 in 425 insured homes has a property damage claim due to theft each year.

So you can see that there are a lot of insured homes making claims every year in the U.S. - and you can imagine if these people didn’t have any type of coverage, they may have to spend a lot of money repairing or replacing their home or property.

*Insurance Information Institute calculations, based on ISO®, a Verisk Analytics® business, data for homeowners insurance claims from 2015-2019.