![\"Terrace](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1_GettyImages-1266472877.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLocal homeowners are still paying over three times more than the rest of the UK despite falling prices<\/p>\n
Terrace house rooftops in Belfast(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
New figures have revealed that homeowners in Northern Ireland are paying over three times more for insurance than the rest of the UK on average, according to new data.<\/p>\n
While average premiums have fallen year-on-year across the UK, NI households<\/a> still face dramatically higher costs than any other region, with residents in one council area now forking out an average of over \u00a3800 annually. Even the cheapest NI district has significantly higher premiums than every region in Great Britain.<\/p>\n Northern Ireland recorded the smallest drop in the UK, down 5% year-on-year from \u00a3504 to \u00a3479, according to research from CompareNI.com. In comparison, premiums across Great Britain fell by an average of 9%, with Londoners enjoying the biggest decrease at 11%.<\/p>\n Despite the overall decline, there are still major disparities in home insurance costs at a local level, with the gulf between the cheapest and most expensive NI districts widening to over \u00a3400.<\/p>\n Newry, Mourne and Down<\/a> remains by far the most expensive area, with average prices rising by 6.5% from \u00a3769 to \u00a3819. Antrim and Newtownabbey<\/a> was the only other district to see a rise, up by 3.5% to \u00a3456.<\/p>\n At the other end of the scale, Ards and North Down<\/a> continues to have the lowest average premiums, with costs falling 5.3% to \u00a3411.<\/p>\n The biggest year-on-year reductions were seen in Fermanagh<\/a> and Omagh<\/a> (-11%), Mid and East Antrim (-8.5%) and Causeway Coast and Glens<\/a> (-7.4%).<\/p>\n Average home insurance premiums across NI districts in Q2 2025 vs Q2 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Northern Ireland\u2019s higher home insurance prices compared to GB are mainly due to a combination of risk and market issues. Building repairs in the region tend to be more expensive due to inflation, labour shortages and material costs, and there are fewer providers here, making costs less competitive than in England, Scotland and Wales.<\/p>\n The region has also been hit by several extreme weather events in recent years, most notably the severe flooding that hit the South East in autumn 2023, inundating hundreds of properties and causing damage worth upwards of \u00a340 million.<\/p>\n Homeowners in Newry, Mourne and Down continue to be severely impacted by this event, with premiums in the district rocketing by 235% over the past three years.<\/p>\n The scale of the incident prompted a government review, which found the flooding was due to \u201cunprecedented\u201d rainfall and warned that \u201cwith climate change, the frequency of such events will double”.<\/p>\n As insurers factor long-term risk into their pricing, this partly explains why premiums in Newry, Mourne and Down remain high and continue to climb, almost three years after the flood waters have subsided.<\/p>\n Ian Wilson, insurance expert and Managing Director at CompareNI.com<\/p>\n Ian Wilson, home insurance expert and Managing Director at CompareNI.com<\/a>, said: \u201cWhile it is positive to see home insurance prices dropping across the UK, Northern Ireland is unfortunately not keeping pace with other regions and homeowners here are missing out on big savings.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile Londoners saw premiums fall by 11%, prices in Northern Ireland dropped by just 5% on average, the smallest reduction anywhere in the UK. Average premiums here are now more than three times higher than across the water, adding extra strain to household budgets that are already being stretched by rising living costs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe latest figures also highlight just how much postcodes can influence insurance costs – with the gap between the highest and lowest-priced areas in Northern Ireland continuing to grow over the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe steady rise in costs in Newry, Mourne and Down shows the lasting impact that extreme weather events can have on insurance prices, with providers factoring increased flood risk into their calculations for years afterwards.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile location isn\u2019t something that homeowners can easily change, there are still some simple steps they can take to help bring insurance costs down, such as paying annually if possible, reviewing their level of cover and always shopping around.\u201d<\/p>\n For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage <\/strong>here<\/a> and sign up to our daily newsletter<\/a> here.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local homeowners are still paying over three times more than the rest of the UK despite falling prices…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1103825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[78922,80195,88580,89729,80196,6333,81144,81143,1144,92049,16,15],"class_list":["post-1103824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-co-antrim","tag-co-derry","tag-co-down","tag-co-fermanagh","tag-co-tyrone","tag-housing","tag-in-the-know","tag-north-down","tag-northern-ireland","tag-omagh","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116961503345753316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1103824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1103825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1103824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1103824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1103824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0_Average-home-insurance-premiums-across-NI-districts-in-Q2-2025-vs-Q2-2026.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Ian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2_Ian-Wilson-CompareNIcom.jpg\")
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