No state has shown the insurance industry the price of a derecho more plainly than Iowa. In August 2020 a line of storms crossed the state with winds as strong as a hurricane's, and in less than an hour it tore roofs off commercial buildings, flattened grain storage and stripped much of the tree cover from Cedar Rapids. It became the costliest thunderstorm event in United States history. Twelve years earlier, the 2008 floods had put downtown Cedar Rapids under water. Between them, those two events explain most of what an underwriter asks before writing commercial property insurance in Iowa today.
The market itself is open. Capacity is broad, regulation is light and liability costs are moderate. The pressure shows in the terms instead: wind and hail deductibles written as a percentage, close attention to how a roof is attached, and a flood question that reaches past the edge of the maps. This page covers how Iowa regulates the market, how wind, hail and river flood are underwritten, and how we place senior living, apartment, hotel and car wash properties from Des Moines and Cedar Rapids to Davenport, Iowa City and Sioux City.
Who regulates property insurance in Iowa
A light regulator and a market priced on storms
The Iowa Insurance Division, in the card above, runs a competitive market with few constraints on how carriers price. That means Iowa rates follow storm losses closely, and the 2020 derecho is still visible in the terms carriers write. An owner feels it less in whether a building can be insured than in what the policy asks the owner to keep.
Liability is the quieter half of an Iowa program. Costs are moderate and the civil courts give carriers little to worry about, so the premises liability line on an occupied building is rarely where an Iowa renewal is won or lost. That leaves the property terms to carry most of the negotiation, and most of this page is about them.
The most important of those terms is the deductible. On an exposed roof, wind and hail are now often subject to a percentage deductible, measured against the building's insured value rather than the damage. On a large apartment complex or hotel that can put a large sum on the owner before the policy pays anything, and on a financed building it can run past what Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and HUD will accept. We show every percentage in dollars, by building, and we check it against the loan documents before binding rather than after the lender's review.
Surplus lines in Iowa has a clear audience: schedules with repeated wind and hail claims and older habitational stock, placed after the admitted market has been tried. A well kept building with a sound roof belongs with an admitted carrier, and one that has been pushed out by a string of roof claims can often come back once the roof has been replaced and documented.
What carriers underwrite for in Iowa
- Derecho
- Hail
- Tornado
- Severe convective storm
- River flood
- Winter storm
- Freeze
Straight line wind, hail, and rivers that leave the maps
The derecho changed how carriers look at an Iowa roof. Straight line wind at that strength tests how a roof is fastened to the building, not only how old its covering is, so underwriters now ask about attachment as well as age, and a roof replaced with its fastening documented presents as a better risk than one that simply looks new. Hail and tornadoes are routine across the state on top of that. Hail is the frequent claim and the derecho the extreme one, so a roof has to answer both: its covering for hail, its fastening for wind. The base of an Iowa program is property cover with the roof attachment on file, written on replacement cost.
Water is Iowa's other defining risk. The 2008 floods showed how completely an inland river can take a commercial district out of service, and they also showed damage well beyond the mapped zones. Lenders require flood cover inside the mapped areas along the Cedar, Iowa, Des Moines and Missouri rivers. Near those rivers, an excess flood layer above the federal limit is worth pricing even for a building the map does not flag, because the map is not where the 2008 water stopped. For any building near those rivers we also look hard at income cover for a downtown out of service after a flood, sized on how long the whole district around the building would take to reopen.
Across the whole state, winter brings its own claims in frozen pipes and ice storms. Burst pipes in older buildings and the power loss that follows an ice storm are ordinary Iowa claims, and a long outage can close a building that suffered no physical damage at all, and both belong in the conversation about heating, plumbing and a plan for keeping a building warm when the grid fails.
The Iowa market right now
Admitted and surplus lines in Iowa
Insurance requirements when the loan is HUD, Fannie or Freddie
Iowa and the four classes we place
Wind, water and winter reach each class in a different way.
Senior living
A community has to shelter residents through straight line winds as strong as a hurricane's, and near a river it has to plan an evacuation as well. HUD Section 232 communities in Iowa are overseen by the Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing. See senior living communities built to ride out a storm.
Apartments
Apartment schedules meet the percentage deductible first, and on agency debt it is the item most likely to need restructuring. Older complexes with repeated roof claims are the ones most likely to be quoted in surplus lines. Our page on apartment roofs rebuilt after a windstorm covers the class nationally.
Hotels
A hotel in a river city downtown carries both of Iowa's signature exposures: a roof that has to hold in a derecho, and a district that can flood. Its income cover should be written on the assumption that the streets around it close as well. More on hotels in river city downtowns.
Car washes
A car wash has a long, exposed roof over its equipment, which puts roof attachment and hail at the center of its underwriting. A wash whose roof has taken repeated wind and hail claims is exactly the schedule Iowa carriers send to surplus lines, and a replaced roof with its fastening documented is how it gets back to an admitted carrier. See car wash buildings with long, exposed roofs.
Where we place business in Iowa
- Des Moines
- Cedar Rapids
- Davenport
- Sioux City
- Iowa City
- Waterloo
What we need to quote an Iowa property
An Iowa underwriter looks at the roof and the rivers first.
- Current declarations and endorsements, showing the wind and hail deductible as written.
- A schedule of values at replacement cost, one line per building.
- For each roof: covering, age, how it is fastened, and any replacement since 2020.
- Five years of loss runs, including every derecho, hail and wind claim and its status.
- Distance to the Cedar, Iowa, Des Moines or Missouri rivers, flood zone status and any flood cover now carried.
- For financed buildings, the deductible and flood terms the loan requires.
Reading an Iowa quote after the derecho
Since 2020, two Iowa quotes at a similar price can differ widely in the percentage deductible, the roof terms and the flood limits. We lay those out next to the premium so an owner compares what they would pay after a storm, not only before one.
We place property and liability for senior living, apartment, hotel and car wash owners across Iowa. See how an Iowa placement is worked and why owners rebuilding after the derecho use a specialist. Owners across the state lines can compare Nebraska and the 2019 Missouri River floods, Wisconsin's winter driven market and Missouri's two hail metros.
Send the declarations pages and a schedule of values to request an Iowa quote.
Alex Toler is licensed in Iowa, license 17045277.
Official Iowa sources
Primary sources for the rules and the flood, wind and wildfire data this page refers to.
