If your clients feel like their homeowners (HO) insurance premiums keep increasing no matter what they do, they're not imagining it. BriteCo's 2025 Independent Insurance Agent Survey, based on responses from 427 agents across all 50 states, confirms that HO insurance has become a genuine cause of stress for clients, and jewelry coverage is emerging as one way that agents can relieve some of that pressure.
Conducted from November through December 2025, the survey shows that the insurance industry is still absorbing the shock of rising repair costs and climate-driven catastrophe risk, pointing to stand-alone jewelry insurance as a once-niche strategy that's becoming more mainstream.
It's hard to ignore the numbers on rising premiums. Nearly two-thirds (63.1%) of agents said more than 75% of their clients experienced an HO premium increase in the past year, while non-renewals, though less widespread, still accounted for a meaningful share of their books.
When agents were asked why premiums increased, their answers closely matched the national narrative. Rising repair costs (74.5%) and climate-related disasters (70.3%) topped the list, followed by clients living in high-risk areas and elevated claims frequency. That alignment helps frame how we discuss solutions with clients, allowing us to connect why this is happening to what they can control rather than relying on abstract rate-hike explanations.
This is also where jewelry coverage plays a much bigger role than in the past. Agents reported using a mix of traditional and structural strategies to manage client costs, including raising deductibles (87.4%), recommending bundling (67.2%), and installing smart home mitigation devices (45.2%), but the standout is that 50.8% of agent respondents said they're recommending that clients replace an HO jewelry rider or floater with a stand-alone policy. Nearly 69% of agents said they recommend stand-alone jewelry coverage "always" or "often," a pattern consistent with BriteCo's 2024 findings. The logic behind this is that taking jewelry off an HO policy can reduce premiums and protect the policy itself from the ripple effects of a jewelry claim.
That last point provides the survey's most useful data for client conversations. While 76.6% of agents now understand that an insurance provider like BriteCo offers stand-alone jewelry policies that don't report claims to loss-history databases such as CLUE or A-PLUS, 54.4% said their clients still don't understand how a jewelry claim on an HO policy could affect future premiums or renewability. But virtually all (99.5%) agents agreed this is worth explaining to their clients.
Agents who understand the impact of jewelry claims reporting have an opportunity to recommend stand-alone coverage, and educating their clients goes a long way toward meaningful risk protection from HO premium hikes and non-renewals. However, it's essential that agents verify that any stand-alone jewelry insurance company they recommend doesn't report claims to CLUE and A-PLUS.
The survey also flagged friction points that are slowing the adoption of stand-alone jewelry policies, including limited provider options (31.3%), difficulty convincing clients (29.6%), and slow quoting/underwriting turnaround (22.4%). These are all workflow issues rather than a lack of trust in stand-alone jewelry insurance, and BriteCo's online agent portal for quoting and binding client policies goes a long way toward reducing these frictions, along with offering more affordable rates.