New Hampshire FAIR Plan: there isn't one, and what to do instead

Does New Hampshire have a FAIR Plan?

No. New Hampshire has no FAIR Plan and no state-backed insurer of last resort. The state isn't a PIPSO member and no residual mechanism exists in statute; the New Hampshire Insurance Department directs homeowners declined by admitted carriers to the surplus-lines market. That's the route after a non-renewal.

There is no New Hampshire FAIR Plan website and no state equivalent of California's FAIR Plan Association or Florida's Citizens. The closest official starting point is the New Hampshire Insurance Department's homeowners-and-renters page, which routes people who can't find coverage in the standard market to the surplus-lines list.

That's not accidental: New Hampshire's homeowners market has stayed competitive enough that the state insurance department's July 2025 Market Data Call Report finds no residual mechanism necessary, with roughly 30 new insurers entering the market in 2025 (New Hampshire Insurance Department). Cold comfort if you're holding a non-renewal letter, so most of this page is about what to do next.

The surplus-lines market comes with a trade-off: non-admitted carriers aren't subject to NHID rate review, and policyholders forfeit New Hampshire Insurance Guaranty Association protection if the carrier becomes insolvent (RSA 404-B). See: what a FAIR Plan is, and what fills the gap when there isn't one.

What does it cover?

Nothing, because there is no plan. New Hampshire has no FAIR Plan, no windstorm pool, and no equivalent insurer of last resort, so there is no named-peril policy form to describe (New Hampshire Insurance Department).

That changes the math. In states that do have a FAIR Plan, the plan typically writes a stripped-down named-peril policy covering fire, lightning, internal explosion, and a short list of extended-coverage perils, then leaves liability, theft, water damage, flood, and earthquake to a separate difference-in-conditions wrap. New Hampshire's fallback markets work differently.

If a non-renewal here pushes the policy to a specialty admitted carrier, the form is usually a standard HO-3: open-peril coverage on the dwelling, named-peril coverage on contents, with liability and theft built in. If it pushes to the surplus-lines (E&S) market, the form varies by carrier. Some E&S homeowners contracts mirror an HO-3; others are named-peril only and exclude perils an admitted policy would include. The contract language is the contract; read it before binding, and ask the agent which perils are excluded.

How much will it cover?

New Hampshire has no FAIR Plan, so there is no statutory dwelling or contents cap to quote. Coverage limits are set by the carrier that ends up writing the policy, not by a state pool. In the surplus-lines market the underwriter sets the dwelling figure case by case, based on the property's rebuild cost and its exposure to the perils the admitted market declined.

For a home that needs more than any single surplus-lines carrier will write on one paper, brokers can layer coverage: a primary policy up to one carrier's comfort line, then an excess policy above it. Contents are normally written as a percentage of the dwelling figure unless valuable items are scheduled separately.

No single residential coverage cap exists for the surplus-lines market in New Hampshire because each carrier sets its own. Whether the policy pays at replacement cost or at actual cash value depends on the form the broker quotes; the binder should state which form applies (see: replacement cost vs actual cash value).

Who is eligible?

Eligibility doesn't work the same way in New Hampshire as in FAIR Plan states. There is no plan to qualify for; the access question is instead about the surplus-lines (excess and surplus, or E&S) market, the route for homes admitted carriers won't take.

A licensed surplus-lines broker in New Hampshire places coverage with non-admitted carriers when the admitted market has declined. The diligent-search standard and producer-licensing rules sit with the New Hampshire Insurance Department, which licenses every surplus-lines broker writing in the state. The department doesn't publish a single consumer-facing checklist of how many declinations a broker must document before placing E&S; the standard lives in statute and in the department's market-conduct expectations for surplus-lines producers.

The practical eligibility test, then, is the broker's underwriting read of the file, not a plan's intake desk. Non-renewal letters, declination correspondence from admitted carriers, and the dwelling's loss history from the CLUE database (the industry prior-claims database) are the evidence brokers work from.

Owner-occupied, second-home, rental, and investor properties all use the same route. New Hampshire does not run a separate channel for any of them. What changes the outcome is the home's condition, prior claims, location (especially a wildland-urban-interface or coastal exposure), and which non-admitted carriers a given broker has appointments with.

How do you apply?

There is nothing to apply to. New Hampshire does not run a FAIR Plan or a state-chartered insurer of last resort, so the application path is the same one a buyer would use in any other line: an independent agent shops admitted carriers first, and if those decline, a surplus-lines broker writes the policy through the non-admitted (E&S) market.

Start with an independent agent rather than a captive one. Captive agents can only place the homeowner with their own carrier; independents run quotes across the full admitted market in one pass. If every admitted carrier declines, the agent either has surplus-lines authority themselves or hands the file to a licensed surplus-lines broker. The New Hampshire Insurance Department publishes licensing information for surplus-lines producers operating in the state.

What to have ready: the non-renewal letter, so the new carrier sees the reason; the current declarations page; a five-year claims history (the carrier will pull the CLUE report anyway, but having it on hand speeds the conversation); any recent roof or wiring inspection; the mortgage company's contact information; and the close date if a lender is waiting on proof of coverage. A new policy can often be bound the same day an underwriter clears the file. Lenders typically accept a binder as proof of coverage while the full policy issues over the following weeks.

How much does it cost?

There is no New Hampshire FAIR Plan, so there is no FAIR Plan rate filing to compare against. The cost question for a non-renewed New Hampshire homeowner has two parts: what a remaining admitted carrier will charge if any will write the home, and what the surplus-lines (E&S) market will charge if none will.

Admitted-carrier homeowners rates in New Hampshire are filed with and reviewed by the New Hampshire Insurance Department before they take effect. Surplus-lines rates are not. A surplus-lines policy is written by a non-admitted carrier that sets its own price without prior approval and typically prices for the risk profile the admitted market just declined. In practice an E&S replacement for a non-renewed homeowners policy is usually meaningfully more expensive than the policy it replaces, with a narrower form: fewer covered perils, higher wind or wildfire deductibles, and tighter water and theft sublimits.

The state does not publish an average surplus-lines homeowners premium, and there is no public dataset of E&S quotes broken down by ZIP, year, or carrier. Two homes on the same street can receive very different E&S quotes depending on roof age, prior claims, distance to a responding fire department, and proximity to wildland fuel. The only reliable number is a written quote from a surplus-lines broker who has actually shopped the home; ranges quoted in news coverage of carrier exits are anecdotes, not filings.

If the new premium feels out of proportion to the risk the carrier cited, the questions to ask before paying are gathered at my premium just jumped; the New Hampshire Insurance Department also publishes a consumer guide and takes rate complaints by phone.

What is changing right now?

The metrics this section normally tracks on a FAIR Plan or beach pool page (policies in force, exposure, member-insurer assessments, depopulation takeouts) do not exist in New Hampshire. The state runs no residual mechanism: carriers either write the risk admitted or it falls to surplus lines. The moving variables are the statute, the regulator's posture, and the underlying loss trend.

HB 1259 was signed by Governor Sununu on August 2, 2024 and took effect January 1, 2025. The P&C cleanup codified a specific-reason requirement on homeowner cancellation and non-renewal notices; a boilerplate "underwriting reasons" line no longer satisfies the statute. In 2025 the New Hampshire Insurance Department issued a Freelook Period letter to insurers on homeowner cancellations within the new-policy freelook window. The bill text and effective date originate with the Legislature; the implementation guidance sits with the regulator.

On capacity, the voluntary market is widening, not retreating. The 2025 Homeowners Market Data Call Report (2024 data), published July 11, 2025, identified more than 30 new insurer entrants in 2025. The next call report, expected mid-2026, will be the first to reflect 2025 loss-ratio data.

The pressure variable is wildfire, not coastal wind. Carrier underwriting responses lag the loss signal; the next data call and any pending rate filings at the NHID are the inflection points to watch. New filings are logged on /changelog/ as they land.

Do you also need a wrap (DIC) policy?

For most New Hampshire non-renewals, no. It depends on the form your E&S carrier writes.

A difference-in-conditions policy, sometimes called a wrap, is a second policy that fills the gaps in a stripped-down primary policy. The classic use case is in FAIR Plan states: the plan writes a basic fire-and-extended-coverage form, so the homeowner buys a DIC to add liability, theft, water damage, and the personal-property coverage a standard HO-3 includes.

New Hampshire is different. Without a FAIR Plan in the picture, a non-renewed homeowner typically lands at a specialty admitted carrier or in surplus lines (E&S). Many E&S property policies already write something close to an HO-3 form: priced higher, but covering the standard suite of perils. In that case a separate DIC wrap is usually unnecessary, because the E&S policy is doing the wrap's job.

The exception: if the only form your broker can place is a basic fire-and-EC policy with no liability, theft, or water damage, a DIC fills those gaps. Stand-alone DIC policies for residential property are a thin market, written mostly by surplus-lines specialists rather than admitted carriers, and pricing varies widely. Aggregate pricing for New Hampshire isn't on the public record.

Before you sign, read the proposed E&S declarations page line by line: covered perils, liability limit, theft, water damage, loss of use. If any are missing or capped below what your lender requires, ask the broker whether a DIC is available, what it costs, and from which carrier. The difference-in-conditions policy explainer covers the form-by-form mechanics.

Alternatives to the FAIR Plan in New Hampshire

Because New Hampshire has no FAIR Plan, the route after a non-renewal is a two-step search: admitted carriers first, then surplus lines if no admitted carrier will write the home.

Start with an independent agent who can quote several admitted carriers at once. Some smaller specialty insurers take risks the national brands decline: older homes, prior claims, rural locations, wood-stove heat, vacant or seasonal use. Admitted carriers are state-licensed and backed by the state guaranty fund if the insurer fails, so it's worth exhausting that market before going to E&S.

If admitted carriers won't write the home, the next stop is excess and surplus lines (E&S), also called the non-admitted market. The New Hampshire Insurance Department licenses surplus-lines brokers to place risks the admitted market won't take. E&S policies typically cost more, carry stricter terms (higher deductibles, narrower perils, exclusions for older roofs or wood stoves), and are not backed by the state guaranty fund. The policy must be placed by a licensed surplus-lines broker, not a regular agent.

For how those two markets differ and what to ask about guaranty-fund coverage, see admitted vs surplus lines.

What to do this week if you just got a non-renewal notice

A non-renewal notice is jarring, especially after years with no claims. The work this week is mechanical: confirm the deadline, line up alternatives, and keep the mortgage servicer in the loop so coverage never lapses.

1. Read the notice for the effective date and the reason. The effective date is when current coverage ends; the reason (peril exposure, claim history, roof age, brush clearance) tells the next agent what to underwrite around. Keep the letter.
2. Call the current agent within 48 hours and ask whether the same carrier or a sister carrier will rewrite. Sometimes a roof inspection, a defensible-space photo, or moving wind-and-hail to a higher deductible flips a no into a yes.
3. Get quotes from at least three independent agents who write multiple admitted carriers in New Hampshire. An independent agent runs several at once; a captive agent (tied to a single brand) cannot. Ask each whether they also place surplus-lines (E&S) business.
4. If admitted carriers decline, ask for a surplus-lines (E&S) quote through a licensed surplus-lines broker. New Hampshire has no FAIR Plan, so surplus lines is the de facto last resort here. Premium runs higher and the form may be wind-and-hail only; get the full policy form, not just the price.
5. Tell the mortgage servicer in writing before the current policy ends. If coverage lapses, the servicer buys a force-placed policy that costs more and protects only the lender. A short email naming the new carrier, effective date, and binder number prevents that.
6. If the only viable policy excludes liability, theft, or water damage, ask the broker about a difference-in-conditions (DIC) wrap. The wrap is a second policy that sits over the limited one.

A longer walkthrough lives on the non-renewal-notice page.