The order
The Texas Commissioner of Insurance approved the Texas FAIR Plan's 2026 residential property rate filings under Order No. 2026-9939, citing compliance with Texas Insurance Code section 2211.056. The changes apply to new and renewal business from September 1, 2026.
Tenants rates decrease 25 percent statewide on average. Homeowners and condominium rates generally decrease statewide. Dwelling fire coverage increases 3.5 percent statewide.
Extended coverage shows a 22.0 percent decrease in the Seacoast Tier 1 territory but substantial inland increases, capped at plus or minus 25 percent, producing a statewide average increase of 21.6 percent for that coverage.
Coastal down, inland up
The directional split is the substance of the order. A 22 percent reduction on the coast alongside a 21.6 percent statewide average increase for the same coverage means inland territories are absorbing very large increases, several of them presumably at the 25 percent cap.
That is a repricing of where wind and hail loss is actually occurring. Coastal hurricane exposure is the risk the Texas residual market was built around, but severe convective storms — hail, straight-line wind, tornadoes — have driven a growing share of losses inland, and those events are far more frequent and less reinsurable than named storms.
The rate changes use a loss-ratio method incorporating wind and non-wind losses, reinsurance, expenses and a provision for the Stabilization Fund. The 25 percent cap itself is a rate-shock limiter: where the indicated rate exceeds it, the plan is charging less than its own indication and will need further increases in later years.
The regional breakdown
The Texas Department of Insurance raised objections during review, after which the FAIR Plan revised its credibility assumptions for the condominium indications and updated in-force premium data before approval. That is the regulatory record working as designed, according to a compliance bulletin summarising the order and TDI's own list of commissioner's orders, which confirms Order No. 2026-9939 was issued May 20, 2026 covering the FAIR Plan's homeowners, dwelling, condominium and tenants rate filings.
The FAIR Plan's own published rate table, current as of July 1, 2026, shows the territorial split in full: homeowners rates fall 21.6 percent in Seacoast Tier 1 and 4.5 percent in greater Dallas-Fort Worth but rise 0.3 percent in Seacoast Tier 2; condominium rates fall as much as 21 percent in the North/Northwest region but only 5.7 percent in Central South; and tenants rates fall the full 25 percent in every region, with no territorial variation, while dwelling fire coverage rises a uniform 3.5 percent statewide and dwelling extended coverage falls 22 percent on the Seacoast Tier 1 coast against a 25 percent cap-driven increase inland. The FAIR Plan is also raising its maximum dwelling coverage limits by about 4 percent for renewal policies from September 1, based on its annual building-cost-index review.
Status: the September 1, 2026 effective date has now passed; the rate table published by the Texas FAIR Plan Association confirms it took effect as scheduled, with no reported amendment to Order No. 2026-9939 since May 20. Statewide averages still conceal wide territorial variation, and the two sources here are the FAIR Plan's own rate table and a trade bulletin summarising the commissioner's order text.