Oklahoma insurance guide

Oklahoma has the highest hail claim frequency in the country, and everything about the state’s property insurance market follows from that one fact.

Percentage wind and hail deductibles are effectively universal here. Roof underwriting is stricter than almost anywhere else. And because the deductible on the peril most likely to hit you is expressed as a percentage rather than a flat number, the most important figure on an Oklahoma homeowners policy is one that does not appear as a dollar amount anywhere on the quote.

The deductible you should convert to money

A percentage deductible on a home means the deductible is calculated against the dwelling limit rather than being a fixed amount.

This is a completely different object from a flat deductible, and the difference is not intuitive. On a larger home, a modest-sounding percentage produces a deductible several times larger than the flat figure most people picture, and it applies specifically to the peril most likely to damage the house.

The fix is one question at quote: “what is my wind and hail deductible in actual money, on this house?”

Any agent can convert it in five seconds. Very few volunteer it, and almost every Oklahoma homeowner who has it converted for the first time is surprised by the answer.

Ask it again when your dwelling limit increases, because the deductible increases with it.

Roof settlement, the second half of the hail question

The deductible decides what you absorb. The settlement basis decides what the insurer pays for what is left.

In a state with this much hail, carriers manage roof exposure by restricting appetite by roof age and, increasingly, by settling older roofs at actual cash value rather than replacement cost.

An actual cash value roof settlement pays the depreciated value of the roof. On a roof approaching the end of its expected life, that can be a small fraction of what a new roof costs — and combined with a percentage deductible, it is possible to have a covered hail claim that pays very little.

That is not a defect in the policy. It is the policy doing exactly what its terms say. But it is frequently the first time a homeowner learns the provision exists.

Ask: how does this policy settle a roof claim, and does that change with the age of my roof?

Earthquake in Oklahoma

Induced seismicity has made earthquake a live exposure across the central counties, and it is excluded from every standard homeowners form in the country.

Two things to know.

It is a separate purchase. Usually an endorsement, sometimes a standalone policy.

The deductible is generally a percentage of the dwelling limit, in the same way the wind and hail deductible is. So the same conversion question applies: what is it in actual money?

Whether to buy it is a decision about your own risk tolerance and the specific counties involved. What should not vary is whether you are told the exposure exists — a Client First certified agency commits to disclosing identified exposures whether or not it can place the coverage, and earthquake in central Oklahoma is a clear case.

Tornado and rebuild cost

Oklahoma’s tornado exposure is a total-loss exposure, which reframes what the dwelling limit is for.

A partial loss is a question about deductibles and settlement terms. A total loss is a question about whether the limit is high enough to rebuild the whole house from nothing — including debris removal and compliance with the building code as it stands today rather than when the house was built.

Ordinance-and-law coverage addresses that last gap specifically, and extended replacement cost addresses the gap between a calculated figure and a post-catastrophe construction market where labour and materials are in short supply. Both are worth having priced in this state.

What to ask an agent in Oklahoma

What is my wind and hail deductible in actual money?

How does this policy settle a roof claim, given the age of my roof?

What would earthquake coverage cost, and what is its deductible?

Is my dwelling insured to rebuild cost today, and do I have ordinance-and-law and extended replacement cost?

What are my liability and UM/UIM limits, and did I choose them?

What did you recommend that I declined — and can I have that in writing?

That last question is a practice standard rather than a courtesy. In a state where the difference between two policies is mostly in provisions nobody reads, a written record of what was recommended is the thing that makes the next conversation useful.