With little data available about homeowners insurance on the local level, it is unclear how many St. Louis residents in the path of Friday's storms are without coverage.
About 7% of Missourians lack homeowners insurance, according to research from Consumer Federation of America. LendingTree.com puts the share at 11%. Lenders require mortgagees to carry policies, but other than that, Missouri law does not mandate coverage.
Many communities north of Delmar Boulevard have several factors that indicate homeowners may not be covered, according to Sharon Cornelissen, a researcher with Consumer Federation of America.
A report on uninsured homes in America from Cornelissen and her colleagues shows that people of color are disproportionately lacking homeowners insurance, with an estimated 11% of Black homeowners living without it. The population of north St. Louis is about 91% Black, according to demographer Ness Sandoval of St. Louis University.
People whose homes are valued at less than $150,000 are also more likely to be without coverage, Cornelissen said. Many neighborhoods in the path of the storms are valued at much less than that. The median sales price in Academy-Sherman Park is about $97,000, according to Realtor.com, for example. Prices are lower in the Ville, with many homes selling for $65,000 to $75,000.
Homes that have been in the same family for generations, usually mortgage free, are also among those most likely to be without homeowners insurance.
"We call this heirs property," Cornelissen said. "A third of these homes do not have homeowners insurance. These homes have been passed down for generations to pass on wealth, and we find they're unprotected. They're really vulnerable when a storm or disaster happens."
According to Cornelissen's research, more than 6 million homeowners across the country lack insurance.
"A lot of people are living kind of on the edge, where their homes are gradually deteriorating, or a storm happens, and they can lose everything," she said. "This is not just important for homeowners and families in St. Louis. But it's a national problem that we're talking about, too."
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METHODOLOGY
For this article, Holly Edgell reviewed "EXPOSED: A Report on 1.6 Trillion Dollars of Uninsured American Homes," from the Consumer Federation of America. She also consulted LendingTree.com and Realtor.com for information about homeowners insurance in St. Louis. She interviewed Sharon Cornelissen, a researcher with Consumer Federation of America.
REFERENCES
Nearly 1 in 7 Homes Across US Are Uninsured (LendingTree.com | March 17, 2025)
EXPOSED: A Report on 1.6 Trillion Dollars of Uninsured American Homes (Consumer Federation of America | March 11, 2024)
Why a Growing Number of Homeowners Choose To Forgo Home Insurance—and the Nail-Biting Gamble They Face (Realtor.com | Aug. 21, 2024)
TYPE OF ARTICLE
Help Us Report - Asks for input, insights, clarifications, anecdotes, documentation, etc.
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