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Quick links: Grants for fortified roofs update | Wildfire mitigation discounts | Insurance profits | Unemployment rate at 3.9% | Free solar-tech training | Colorado gets a D for business | Reader poll
Colorado often ranks among the top states in the nation for many odd and trivial things. But being No. 1 for the largest cumulative increase in home insurance premiums since 2020 was something that quite a few Colorado homeowners could relate to.
Like Rob Riecker, who lives in Parker. His insurance has quintupled in the past decade to about $4,700 this year, putting his payment above the state estimated average of $4,164 in 2026, according to data from insurance comparison site Insurify.
“These increases are unsustainable,” he said in response to a What’s Working reader poll on the cost of insurance.
Of those who responded to the poll, only one person said their insurance went down in recent years. And John Crumlin, who now lives in Grand Junction, shared a very good reason: He used to live in Summit County. “We moved to a new house in a different location, so our reduction in cost is not really relevant,” he shared.
As mentioned in last week’s edition, Colorado insurance commissioner Michael Conway agrees. He also responded to questions and criticism from readers about insurance.
“The state should be providing grants for roofs”
Funny that this came up multiple times among consumer comments.
Joe Collins in Livermore said “there’s a lot of talk but no momentum” and “The state should be providing grants for roofs and siding replacement and it should be an adequate amount, not here’s a 1,000 bucks towards a $75,000 metal roof conversion.”
Well, Joe, grants are coming as part of the Strengthen Colorado Homes Enterprise in a new law that passed in the last legislative session to improve access to homeowners insurance. This applies only to roofs. Damage from hail is the top claim that insurers pay out in Colorado.
They won’t cover the cost of a brand new roof, especially a metal one, but Conway said grants could cover all or most of the additional cost of replacing a standard roof with a fortified one.
That’s based on industry estimates that the additional cost to upgrade to a fortified roof on a 2,000-square-foot home is $3,000 to $5,000, he said. The overall cost of replacing a roof is greater, of course, so the grants are “just an added incentive to get people to switch,” he said.
As part of the new law, legislators set aside $30.2 million in the state budget to help fund the program. The funds will come from a 0.5% fee collected from insurance companies operating in the state. By law, at least 85% of the money has to go to grants.
While details of how grants will be awarded will be hammered out by a seven-member board (applications are open at this link — pick “Strengthen Colorado Homes Enterprise”), Conway said grants could be “in the neighborhood of $7,500 to $10,000 to help people fortify their roofs against hail.”
The board would work with the state insurance division to set standards for roofing materials and require inspections, he said. But that’s still got to be sorted out. The board is expected to be in place by the end of the year, which means the earliest that grants will start is 2027.
Minnesota added a similar grant program for hail-hardened roofs in 2023 and offered $10,000 to $15,000. But the Minnesota legislature only provided funding for the first year to plan the program, and never allocated funds for the grants. The program stopped accepting applications this month. But it plans to build a network of contractors and evaluators and expects to resume in early 2027 “if the legislature funds it next session,” said Jen Longaecker, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Commerce.
➔ What is a fortified roof? The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety created a voluntary standard for a fortified roof. And it tests full-size houses to “realistic storm conditions,” which includes 2-inch ice balls. The hail test “involves firing the ice balls from a sling or air cannon.” The roof must survive two impacts on the same spot, according to the technical standard. Fortified roofs aren’t necessarily metal roofs, but can be clay and concrete. IBHS notes that metal roofs are tested with 2-inch steel balls and even if they typically survive, there could be aesthetic damage. Other fortified roof designations cover high wind and hurricanes. This video shows IBHS’ hail test demonstration.
“Mandate mitigation and discount premiums for mitigation completed.”
Virginia Schultz in unincorporated Boulder County doesn’t understand why some of her neighbors living in larger homes within 5 miles and “all in the same forest/terrain” are paying lower homeowners insurance premiums than she is.
“Mandate hail-proof roofs and provide assistance,” she suggested in her response.
Mandating mitigation is a challenge because there is no law requiring homeowners to have insurance. And if you recall, some homeowners have been rejected by all insurers so their only coverage options are nothing or the state’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, or FAIR plan, which is still expensive and provides limited coverage.
But discounts do exist, even if they differ from company to company. Ask your insurance company. Soon, every insurer will provide them.
A state law passed in 2025 requires insurers that don’t consider mitigation in their wildfire or catastrophe models to “provide discounts to policyholders who can demonstrate that property-specific mitigation actions have been undertaken on the property or community-level mitigation actions … to reduce the risk of loss.”
“Those fully go into effect in October,” Conway said. “Another important piece of it is that law applies to single-family homes and personal property but it also applies to the commercial businesses. And commercial business is where condominiums and townhomes buy their insurance coverage. And that’s been a real challenge in Colorado so we wanted to make sure we applied the law to commercial lines as well.”
➔ Where to find discounts, financial support. The state’s insurance division plans to have a consumer information site in October. But homeowners should always ask around and ask their insurer. Wildfire Partners offers a rebate of up to $500 for wildfire mitigation in Boulder County. Douglas County has its Wildfire Mitigation Cost-Share Program, which provides up to $25,000 for individual projects and is opening a new round this month. Also, insurance-comparison site Insurify provides a list of discounts available from various insurers, along with other lesser known discounts. Here’s the list from Insurify.
“Limit profit margins for insurance companies”
Multiple people who responded to our poll mentioned variations of this suggestion, including that home insurers “should not be for profit” and “investors should not get to decide on how money is distributed.”
But as Conway has pointed out in the past, if insurance companies are unable to break even or make a profit, or if they continually lose money in the state, they’ll leave and that means fewer options for Coloradans.
“We have real affordability challenges in our homeowners insurance market, and the market isn’t going to just fix itself,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out ways to be innovative to find solutions to make homeowners insurance coverage more affordable. We want to use the market.”
In rate filings, Conway said insurance companies target a pretty low number and “it’s going to be someplace in the 3 to 5% range,” he said.
In 2024, homeowners insurers in Colorado made a profit of 30 cents for every dollar in customer premiums collected, according to state loss ratios filed with the division. But the prior year, they paid out $1.30 in claims for every dollar in premiums collected.
“Let’s say they’re targeting a 5% profit in this state and we wipe that out completely. If we reduced insurance rates by 5%, the majority of people out there would still tell you that it’s not affordable for them. So that isn’t the answer itself,” Conway said. “We’ve got to be far more innovative than that. That’s why we’re focused on trying to tackle the risk side of things with hail, and getting roofs put on homes that are going to last through at least two or three hailstorms.”
But wildfires are a different challenge that will need more than mitigation. Replacing a damaged roof due to hail doesn’t cost as much as rebuilding an entire community wiped out by a sudden wildfire.
“Mitigation itself isn’t going to have the impact as quick as people want it to have, especially from an affordability standpoint,” he said.
Take the poll: How expensive?
If you missed this reader poll last week, we still want to hear what’s going on in your world with property insurance. So far, 82% of the 45 respondents shared that insurance has doubled since 2020. Several shared their costs for annual premiums that were 400% higher than in 2020.
Share some great ideas or suggestions about how to help Colorado’s insurance division improve affordability of property insurance premiums. Thanks to everyone who voted and shared a comment.
Go on, share your insight >> cosun.co/WWinsurance2026
Sun economy stories you may have missed
➔ Coloradans are worried about affordability and say elected leaders aren’t doing enough to help, new poll shows. 76% of respondents to this year’s Pulse Poll, conducted annually by the Colorado Health Foundation since 2020, said they were worried about being able to afford to live here in the future >> Read story
➔ AI robot arm aims to pluck more recycling out of Denver metro area. Republic Services hopes to bring down 25% rate of throwaways by cleaning up the single-stream >> Read story
➔ Less housing supply hasn’t created more demand in metro Denver market. More sellers are taking homes off the market to relist them later. Denver has one of the highest rates of relisted homes. >> Read story
➔ New heat pump rebate aims to curb emissions in Colorado’s Front Range. The $1,500 rebate is available to homeowners and businesses in the 10-county Denver metro region who install a new heat pump in an existing building >> Read story
➔ With their fruit crops obliterated by freeze, these Colorado growers are forced to flex their business muscles to survive. An April freeze devastated farmers along the North Fork Valley, including a total loss at the Kropp family’s First Fruits. Here’s how the orchards are moving on. >> Read story
➔ John Deere agrees to landmark “right to repair” settlement driven by Colorado farmers. The agreement with the federal government and five states to allow more access to fix agricultural equipment is a win for farmers and consumer advocates >> Read story
➔ Rocky Mountain Youth Corps debuts construction trades program for Routt County high schoolers. As federal funds for trail work ebbs, a new program teaches house-building skills to corps students who typically work in public lands >> Read story
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Other working bits
➔ Colorado adds jobs in June, but labor force declines again. Last month, Colorado employers added 4,800 nonfarm payroll jobs primarily in the private sector, according to the state Department of Labor and Employment. The number is an estimate and could change as more data is collected.
And numbers do change. May job numbers got worse with age. Instead of losing 400 jobs, Colorado lost 900 jobs between April and May. There’s still an estimated 2,970,800 jobs in the state, with the largest private-sector gains last month in leisure and hospitality, up 4,000 jobs, followed by construction, up 1,500 jobs. The biggest losers were in information, which tends to be office and tech workers, and the trade, transportation and utilities category. Both lost 1,700 jobs.
But there were also fewer people in the state’s labor force last month, with estimates declining by 12,900 working-age adults. That lowered the state’s labor force participation rate to 65.6%, the lowest since July 2020. By comparison, the U.S. rate is 61.5%.
The state’s unemployment rate stayed at 3.9%, where it’s been since January. That compared with the U.S. jobless rate of 4.2%, which was down one-tenth of a percentage point from May. The Pueblo metro area had the state’s highest not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, at 5.6%, up from 5.1% in May. The Fort Collins region had the lowest, at 3.6%, up from 3.4% in May. >> See the data
➔ Goodwill has free solar installer training plus job placement. Goodwill of Colorado is ramping up for its first solar installation training program, which starts Aug. 10 and lasts for three weeks. There’s room for 15 students and applications are now open. A second is planned for later this year and four more next year.
This is part of the Goodwill of Colorado Clean Tech Accelerator, which offers a number of other training programs, including the electric vehicle technicians program launched last year to learn how to repair and maintain EVs.
The solar program provides hand-on training with solar panel installation and battery storage maintenance. Students also can earn industry credentials like OSHA 10, CPR and the IronRidge Installer Certification.
An even nicer perk? Help with finding a job. Last year, Goodwill’s EV training program had a 65% placement rate and a starting wage of $23.70, said Goodwill spokesperson Elizabeth Jumel in an email. >> To apply, email cleantech@goodwillcolorado.org
➔ Colorado gets D+ for the cost of doing business. That’s probably not a surprise for some small and large businesses in the state. After CNBC’s new Top States for Business report came out this month, local business groups bemoaned the state’s sliding to No. 25, the lowest since the report launched in 2007. Last year, it was 11th.
“Regulatory burdens, housing, rising costs and workforce needs remain key issues affecting the state’s competitiveness,” Colorado Chamber President and CEO Loren Furman said in a news release. The Chamber has been publicizing the negative impact that such costs and regulations have had on local business. In April, it published a report about 98 companies leaving the state since 2019.
The CNBC report graded every state on the cost of living (D-), doing business (D+), economy (C), business friendliness (C-) and more.The only A, and an A- at that? Technology and innovation. Meanwhile, Ohio topped the list due to improving business costs and infrastructure. But it ranked lower than Colorado for its workforce and the technology-innovation category. >> Colorado’s 25th-place finish
➔ Fort Collins gigabit internet provider offers discounts for college students. The perks of being a college student, at least in Fort Collins, now include discounted gigabit internet for any college student living in the city. The city-owned broadband provider Connexion is offering students (including online) $20 off the monthly price of gigabit service, which brings the bill to $50 a month. Since it’s fiber service, the offer is only available to students living in Connexion’s coverage area. >> Details
➔ Need a job? Jason Crow’s job fair is Friday. In case you missed this last week, dozens of employers will be at the job fair organized by the office of Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow. Set for July 24 at the Stampede in Aurora, doors open at 10 a.m. with veterans, active duty service members and their spouses allowed in 30 minutes earlier. >> Register to attend
Got some economic news or business bits Coloradans should know? Tell us: cosun.co/heyww
I just reviewed my own insurance this week with my insurer. I was offered a discount in exchange for installing technology to monitor my safe (or unsafe) driving habits. No thanks! Despite that, my auto insurance premiums are going down — apparently it’s a national trend.
Thanks for sticking with me for this week’s report. ~ tamara
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