Dropping all forms of insurance was the #1 motivation for me to pay off my mortgage. My rate was under 3%, but insurance is absolutely brutal once you factor in the bureaucratic hell that must be navigated to get any kind of payout. The premiums are off the charts too. $10k+/yr for a ~$350k cardboard box in Texas is absolutely insane.

The biggest scam I've seen in real estate is mandatory windstorm insurance (TWIA & friends). I've been through multiple hurricanes where claims were involved and it would have been significantly better if the premiums were simply left in a savings account to compound over time.

Any kind of disaster that would require complete reconstruction of your home would likely violate whatever "act of god" clause happens to exist in literally every policy. Not having insurance is not equivalent to being at risk for the total property value (in any practical sense). $10k goes a long way when you are repairing wood and plastic that is mostly still standing. If you are fortunate enough to have a few years between catastrophes (as typically you do), then it's generally never a problem.

A simple rule for today's economy: If you cannot afford the property on cash basis, you should probably try to find a cheaper property. The risk of mandatory insurance premiums creeping up into the danger zone is too high. Even if it starts out OK, you may find that your escrow account requirements start to outpace your principal and interest obligations over the years.

I would pretty much disagree with everything here.

Paying off a 3% mortgage means you could not invest that money, which would return 7% on average or like 10+% recently. That is a lot of lost money.

Anyone whos not L5 at bigtech cannot afford any home on a cash basis. That’s not a realistic bar.

That being said, insurance is wildly different by state and location and it sounds like it royally sucks in Texas.