This is the first of a two part series about what to expect for Texas Church Insurance in 2026. You can find part two here.
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It is Tuesday night in Tyler and Phil is sitting in the church library with the 2026 budget spread out on the table in front of him. The coffee in his styrofoam cup is cold. The mood in the room is even colder.
Phil has served on the finance committee for six years. He loves his church. He loves seeing the pews full on Sunday and the youth building bustling on Wednesday nights. But lately, serving on this committee has felt less like stewardship and more like crisis management.
The cost of everything has gone up. The electric bill is higher. The price of snacks for Sunday School has doubled. The staff needs a cost of living adjustment just to keep up with inflation. Phil looks at the spreadsheet and rubs his temples. He's not sure how to make this work.
Then his eyes land on the line item that has caused him the most sleep loss over the last three years. Property Insurance.
He remembers the renewal meeting with their insurance agent last year. It was a bloodbath. The annual premium jumped thirty percent after massive increases in prior years. The deductible doubled. And the agent told them they were lucky to have "decent" commercial property coverage at all because so many carriers had pulled out of Texas.
Phil dreads taking the call again this year. He expects another fight. He expects to have to tell the committee that they need to find budget cuts to afford the new property and liability insurance premium.
He picks up the phone the next morning to call his agent. He braces himself for the bad news.
But the voice on the other end is different this time. The agent sounds lighter. Optimistic.
"Phil," the agent says. "We actually have options this year. The carriers are competing for your business again."
Phil pauses. He hasn't heard the word "competing" in a sentence about insurance for churches since before the pandemic.
You know exactly how Phil feels. If you are a church administrator or sit on a finance board for a church in Texas, you have endured a brutal three year stretch. You have felt the helplessness of a "hard market." You have watched your premiums explode while your coverage options shrank.
But as we settle into 2026, the wind is finally shifting.
The Texas church insurance market is thawing. After years of record breaking losses and carrier exits, we are seeing green shoots in the ground. Church Insurance companies are hungry for growth again.
This isn't just luck. It is a fundamental shift in the marketplace. If you know how to leverage it, you can finally stop the bleeding in your budget.
Here are the three specific green shoots that are changing the game for Texas churches this year.
For the last few years, the negotiation dynamic between churches and insurance companies has been one sided. It was more a hostage situation than actual negotiations.
Carriers were fleeing the state. The ones that stayed knew they were the only game in town. They dictated the price. They dictated the terms and conditions of this special kind of business insurance. You had to take it because the alternative was going bare.
That is changing.
Capacity has returned to Texas. Carriers that stopped writing new business in 2023 have quietly opened their doors again. New capital has entered the market through Managing General Agents who are specifically targeting religious organizations.
This means we have moved from a hostage situation back to a true marketplace.
When we market your church this year, we aren't just begging one underwriter to offer a quote. We are pitting three or four carriers against each other to find the best terms. The insurance companies become willing to negotiate.
Texas churches finally have leverage. But you have to work with an experienced agent that knows how to use it to your advantage. You have to make them compete for the privilege of insuring your church.
Over the last few years, getting a lower premium usually meant you had to cut commercial property coverage. You had to raise your deductible or lower your building value just to keep the bill from skyrocketing.
In 2026, we are seeing something different. We are seeing base rates drop for the right churches.
This is not a favor from the church insurance companies. It is math.
Insurance rates are driven by claims paid out. For a long time, the claims paid in Texas left companies upside down. Carriers were paying out more in claims than they were collecting in premiums. They had to raise actual premiums to survive.
But over the last two years, claim activity has stabilized. The massive, catastrophic losses (weather natural disasters) have slowed down. The carriers have repaired their balance sheets. Now, they are sitting on capital that needs to be deployed. They need to write new policies to grow.
This supply and demand imbalance works in your favor. To win the "good" business, carriers are lowering their rates for commercial property insurance. They are offering the best premiums to churches with good roofs, reasonable property size, and clean claim histories.
If your church is considered a preferred risk profile, you are finally seeing the benefit of a healthy marketplace. The price you pay is starting to reflect your actual safety record rather than the panic of the entire industry.
There is also a technical reason why 2026 is a turning point. It has to do with the calendar and property damage to your buildings.
Church insurance underwriters typically look at a five year "Loss Run" report when they evaluate your church. They look at every claim you have filed in the last sixty months to decide if you are a safe bet for both property and liability coverage.
For the last four years, that report has been haunted by one specific event for property insurance. February 2021. Winter Storm Uri. Also known as "The Great Deep Freeze".
That freeze wrecked pipes and budgets across the entire state. Even churches that never file claims found themselves with massive property damage bills due to water from burst pipes.
Those claims have been ugly scars on Loss Run reports for the last five years. They scared off underwriters. They drove up average costs for church insurance. They made you look like a high risk even though you couldn't control the weather.
In February 2026, we hit the five year mark.
Those Winter Storm Uri claims are rolling off the look back period for church insurance companies. Your claims history is about to look cleaner than it has in half a decade.
This technical cleanup removes a major barrier to affordability. When an underwriter looks at your file now, they see a clean sheet. They don't see the massive water claim from five years ago. This allows us to argue for the best possible tier of pricing.
Phil hung up the phone with our agent and looked back at his spreadsheet. For the first time in years, he felt a sense of control. The numbers could work.
He didn't have to cut the budget for mission trips. They could afford replacement cost coverage rather than actual cash value. He could give the staff their raises.
The market is better, but it isn't giving away the property and liability insurance your church needs without work. You have to help our experienced agents prove you deserve the best rates. You need an advocate who knows how to package your church and sell your story to these insurance companies.
At Insurance For Texans, we use our proprietary Risk Assessment process to do exactly that. We collect data about community programs and scope of activities to prove to the underwriters that you are a Preferred Risk. True Texas Church Insurance leverages the new competition to drive your costs down the right way.
Don't let the opportunity of 2026 pass you by. The green shoots are there. Let us help you harvest them.
Click the button to get the right property policy for your church so that you can have The Promise of Certainty.