Annual Insurance Review and SF-Specific Home Maintenance

Updated 2026-10-24, 7 minute read

Two habits separate owners who keep an old San Francisco house in good shape from owners who fund a contractor's retirement: a maintenance calendar built around water and earthquakes, and an insurance review every year before the renewal auto-renews. The first keeps a $400 gutter cleaning from becoming a $40,000 dry-rot repair; the second is where the money is, because California premiums are being repriced carrier by carrier and the renewal you are mailed is rarely the best price.

The SF maintenance calendar

Much of the city's housing stock is 80 to 120 years old, wood framed, and sitting in fog. The guideline for maintenance budgets is 1% to 4% of value a year, with homes over 30 years old at the upper end; plan on the upper half for a Victorian or Edwardian and about 0.5% for a condo interior plus a cushion for assessments.

When	What	Why it matters in SF
September, before the first rain	Clean gutters and downspouts, clear area drains and light wells, test the sump pump, check for water pooling at the foundation	Winter rain is concentrated; the first storm finds every blocked drain
Fall	Check exterior paint and caulk, especially south and west faces and window sills; touch up bare wood	Fog moisture and bare redwood make dry rot the most common SF repair
Spring	Roof and flashing inspection, skylights, parapet caps on flat roofs	Flat and low-slope roofs fail at seams and penetrations
Every 2 to 3 years	Sewer lateral camera inspection on clay or cast-iron pipe	You own the whole lateral; a collapse is a street-cut repair

The sewer lateral deserves its own line: the SFPUC's guidance is that you must hire a licensed plumber to inspect and maintain the entire lateral and pay for repairs between the building and the curb, while the SFPUC repairs documented structural defects under the street at no cost in most cases. There is no sale-triggered certificate here as in the East Bay, so keep the escrow video and repeat it on a schedule.

Seismic: bolting, cripple walls, water heaters and soft story

In rough order of cost:

Water heater strapping. Required by state law and certified at sale; check the straps after any plumbing work.
Bolting and cripple-wall bracing. Houses built into the 1940s often sit on concrete never bolted to the framing, with short cripple walls between foundation and first floor. National guides put a typical bolt-and-brace job around $3,000 to $8,000 as of 2026-10-25 (check current figures), Bay Area labor higher. The state's Earthquake Brace + Bolt program offers grants of up to $3,000, plus supplemental grants of up to $7,000 for income-eligible owners, for pre-1980 houses in eligible ZIP codes, in registration windows that open periodically; the program was closed to new registrations as of its most recent published update, and a 2025 window briefly admitted rental properties, so check current eligibility before you count on a grant. A documented retrofit also earns a CEA hazard reduction discount of up to 25%.
Brick foundations. Common under Victorians; they cannot be bolted meaningfully and are replaced in sections. As of 2026-10-24 there is no reliable published SF average; expect a six-figure project and get two bids.
Soft story. The city's mandatory program under Ordinance 66-13 covered pre-1978 wood-frame buildings of five or more units with a weak ground floor; the deadlines have passed and non-compliant buildings are placarded. Two- to four-unit buildings and houses with living space over a garage can have the same weakness without any mandate. SF red flags covers how to recognize each condition, and seismic work is excluded from property tax reassessment under state law.

Condo owners: what the HOA maintains and how to influence it

Your CC&Rs draw the line, usually at the unfinished surfaces of your walls, floors and ceilings: the association maintains roof, structure, exterior, common plumbing and electrical, elevators and grounds; you maintain everything inside, often including windows and doors. Dues have risen sharply across SF in the past few years, with the metro median monthly HOA payment reported at about $500 in 2025, driven by master-policy insurance and deferred work surfacing through California's SB 326 balcony inspections, due by January 1, 2025 and repeated every nine years, while Fannie Mae's tightening condo rules push boards toward higher dues or special assessments. To influence that: read the reserve study's percent-funded figure, and attend the fall budget meeting. HOA documents explains the numbers that predict assessments.

Finding contractors in SF

Licensing. California requires a CSLB license for any job of $1,000 or more in labor and materials. Check the license, bond and workers' compensation status on the CSLB site.
Permits. DBI requires permits for structural, electrical and plumbing work, re-roofing, most window replacement, water heater and furnace replacement, and anything that changes the floor plan; painting, flooring and like-for-like cabinet swaps generally do not. Confirm who pulls the permit and that it is finaled, because finaled permits are what appear on the 3R report when you sell.
Bids. Three written bids with identical scope. The spread on dry-rot, drainage and roofing work in SF is routinely a third or more, and the low bid with a vague scope is not the cheap one.

Your annual insurance review

Diary it 45 to 60 days before renewal:

Update the rebuild cost. Confirm the dwelling limit, extended replacement cost and ordinance-or-law coverage, which pays to rebuild to a code an old house does not meet.
Claim new discounts. A finished retrofit, a new roof, a panel upgrade, leak sensors, an alarm and bundling with auto all discount, and none apply until you report them.
Re-shop. Send identical inputs to an independent broker and one or two direct carriers. Quotes for the same SF home differ by thousands a year, and carriers that declined you two years ago may bind now as capacity returns under the state's Sustainable Insurance Strategy.
Revisit the deductible. Moving from $1,000 to $2,500 or $5,000 usually cuts the premium meaningfully; stay within your lender's limit, 5% of the coverage amount under the Fannie Mae standard, and send any new declarations page to your servicer.

Homeowners insurance in SF's hard market covers HO-3 versus HO-6 and the FAIR Plan in full.

Non-renewal notices

California requires an insurer to give at least 75 days' notice before declining to renew a homeowners policy and to state the reason. Treat the notice as a project with a deadline:

Fixable reasons. Roof age, knob-and-tube wiring, an old panel, vegetation, a trampoline or an unfenced pool. Fix it, document it, and ask the carrier in writing to reconsider. Bay Area brokers report that active knob-and-tube now draws declines broadly, so a rewire is often the ticket back into the admitted market.
Remarket at once. Give an independent broker the notice, the inspection reports and the repair plan; they reach regional and surplus-lines carriers you cannot.
The backstop. If no admitted carrier will write the home before the old policy ends, bind a FAIR Plan policy with a difference-in-conditions wrap so your lender has continuous coverage; it costs more, especially after the FAIR Plan's 2026 rate increase, so treat it as a bridge and ask the broker which repairs would get a standard carrier to bind next year.

Earthquake coverage and umbrella liability, revisited

Your earthquake decision was made with the equity you had at closing. Re-run it every year or two: as equity grows the case for coverage often strengthens, while a finished retrofit lowers the premium by up to 25% through the CEA's discount. Run the CEA calculator at two or three deductibles and get one private quote; earthquake insurance has the worth-it framework. Owning also raises your liability exposure: standard homeowners liability limits are a few hundred thousand dollars, and an umbrella policy stacks coverage above your home and auto policies in million-dollar increments at a typically low cost per dollar of protection. Quote it with your homeowners renewal.

What to shop for right now

The homeowners renewal is a high-savings item: California increases have been steep and uneven, and the same SF house draws quotes thousands of dollars apart. Earthquake coverage is medium: uniform CEA pricing, but deductible, retrofit documentation and a private quote move the number by hundreds to over a thousand dollars. Contractors and the umbrella are medium: three identical-scope bids with a CSLB check, and a quote alongside the renewal. None of these pay this site anything; it is paid through the buyer-side commission only when someone later works with one of its agents.

Shop for this now

Service	When	Savings from shopping	How to shop it
Homeowners insurance (renewal)	45 to 60 days before every renewal, and immediately after any rate jump or non-renewal notice	High: shop it hard Renewal increases in California have been steep and uneven, with the FAIR Plan's 2026 dwelling rate increase approved at 29.1% on average, effective October 15, 2026, and State Farm's 2025 interim increase at 17% (check current figures), and quotes for the same San Francisco home routinely differ by thousands of dollars a year; the difference between an admitted carrier and the FAIR Plan plus a wrap is larger still.	Send the same inputs (updated rebuild cost, deductible, roof and electrical updates, any retrofit) to an independent broker and one or two direct carriers, ask each for discounts you now qualify for, and compare the quotes against the renewal before it auto-renews.
Earthquake insurance (renewal)	Every one to two years, and after any retrofit or large change in your equity or loan balance	Medium: worth 2-3 quotes CEA pricing is uniform across sellers, but changing the deductible, documenting a retrofit for a discount of up to 25%, or switching to a private carrier can move the premium by hundreds to more than a thousand dollars a year for the same SF house.	Run the CEA premium calculator at two or three deductibles, submit retrofit documentation for the hazard reduction discount, and get one private-carrier quote for the same coverage through your broker.
Contractors for recurring maintenance	Before any job over about $1,000, and every spring for the pre-rain list	Medium: worth 2-3 quotes Bids for the same dry-rot, drainage or roof work in San Francisco differ widely, often by a third or more between the high and low bid, and an unpermitted job can cost you again at resale when it appears nowhere on the 3R report.	Get three written bids with the same scope, verify each license and insurance on the CSLB site, ask who pulls the DBI permit, and check the contractor's recent permit history by address on DBI's records.
Umbrella liability policy	At your first homeowners renewal, then whenever your assets or the home's value change materially	Medium: worth 2-3 quotes Pricing varies by carrier and bundling, and the quote beside your homeowners renewal is the cheap way to compare; as of 2026-10-24, treat any published average as a starting point only.	Quote $1 million to $2 million of umbrella coverage from the carrier that writes your homeowners or auto policy and from your broker, and compare the required underlying limits each one imposes.

Frequently asked questions

How often should I shop my homeowners insurance?

Every year, about 45 to 60 days before the renewal date, and immediately if the renewal premium jumps or the carrier changes your terms. California premiums have been repriced sharply and unevenly: the FAIR Plan's approved dwelling rate increase of 29.1% on average took effect October 15, 2026, and State Farm received a 17% interim increase in 2025, while other carriers are re-entering the market under the state's Sustainable Insurance Strategy. Re-quoting through an independent broker and one or two direct carriers, with the same rebuild cost and deductible, is the only way to know whether your renewal is competitive.

What do I do if my insurance company sends a non-renewal notice in California?

Read the stated reason first, because California law requires at least 75 days' notice of non-renewal and the reason has to be given. If the reason is fixable, such as roof age, wiring or overgrown vegetation, fix it and ask the carrier to reconsider in writing. At the same time have an independent broker remarket the home to admitted carriers, and if nobody will write it, bind a FAIR Plan policy with a difference-in-conditions wrap before the old policy ends so there is no gap and your lender stays satisfied. Then plan the repairs that get you back to a standard carrier at the next renewal.

How much does a seismic retrofit cost in San Francisco?

For a house on a sound concrete foundation that needs bolting and cripple-wall bracing, national cost guides put a typical job at roughly $3,000 to $8,000 as of 2026-10-25 (check current figures), and Bay Area labor runs higher; the state's Earthquake Brace and Bolt program offers grants of up to $3,000, with supplemental grants of up to $7,000 for income-eligible owners. Replacing a brick foundation or retrofitting a soft-story building is a different project, usually six figures, and as of 2026-10-24 there is no reliable published San Francisco average. Get two bids from contractors who do this work weekly and ask your earthquake insurer what discount a documented retrofit earns, which with the CEA can reach 25%.

Who is responsible for the sewer lateral in San Francisco?

You are, for the whole pipe from your building to the city main. The SFPUC's guidance is that the property owner must hire a licensed plumber to inspect, maintain and repair the lateral, and that the owner pays for repairs to the upper section between the building and the curb; the SFPUC repairs structural defects in the lower section under the street at no cost in most cases once a plumber documents them. San Francisco has no sale-triggered lateral certificate like the East Bay, so a camera inspection every few years on original clay or cast-iron pipe is your only early warning.

What maintenance does a Victorian house need?

Water management above all: clean gutters and downspouts and clear drains before the first rains, keep exterior paint and caulk intact because bare redwood and old stucco take on fog moisture and rot, and check decks, window sills and bathroom subfloors for dry rot every year. Beyond that, plan for the big systems reaching end of life in sequence: roof, sewer lateral, original wiring and galvanized plumbing, and the foundation and cripple walls. Budget toward the upper half of the 1% to 4% of value guideline that applies to homes over 30 years old, because most SF houses are over 100.

Do I need an umbrella policy as a homeowner?

Once you own a San Francisco home you have a seven-figure asset a judgment can reach, and the liability limit on a standard homeowners policy is usually a few hundred thousand dollars. An umbrella policy adds liability coverage above your home and auto policies in increments of $1 million, and it is typically among the cheapest coverage you can buy per dollar of protection. Price it with the same carrier that writes your homeowners or auto policy at renewal time, since bundling discounts are common; as of 2026-10-24, get a quote rather than relying on a published average.