Updated August 17, 2026. Quick answer: In Texas your insurer must give you at least 60 days’ written notice before it declines to renew your homeowners policy, and the insurer owes you a written statement of the reason either way. If that notice is late or defective, the insurer’s duty to renew is not displaced — the code makes renewal the default and a compliant notice the exception to it. Ending the policy mid-term is a separate event on a separate clock: 10 days. Every answer below is quoted from Texas’s own code and the section is named and linked, because this is the kind of question where the section number is the answer.
What Texas law settles, in four lines
| Question | What the code says | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Notice required before non-renewal | 60 days | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.105 |
| Must the insurer state a reason | The insurer owes you a written statement of the reason either way | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.109 |
| If the notice is late or defective | The insurer’s duty to renew is not displaced — the code makes renewal the default and a compliant notice the exception to it | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.105 |
| Notice required for mid-term cancellation | 10 days | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.104 |
Which policies this covers. The Texas subchapter names a homeowners policy directly, alongside personal auto, the standard fire policy on a one-family dwelling or duplex, and property cover for governmental bodies. A separate subchapter covers commercial lines and does not apply to your home. Tex. Ins. Code § 551.102
Two different letters are in play and the codes handle them separately. A non-renewal declines to write the next term: the policy runs to its expiration date and stops. A cancellation ends the policy mid-term, before the date you have paid through, and is usually limited to grounds the statute lists. The first thing to establish about the letter in front of you is which one it is — in Texas the two carry different notice periods, and the rest of the answer follows from that word rather than from the state.
How much warning Texas requires
60 days. The number on its own is not the rule, though — a day count means nothing without the two things the statute states and the comparison tables drop: what it counts back from, and when the clock starts. Both are on the face of the section quoted here.
Unless the insurer has mailed written notice of nonrenewal or renewal with written notice of change in coverage as provided by Section 2002.001 to the insured not later than the 60th day before the date on which the insurance policy expires, an insurer must renew an insurance policy, at the request of the insured, on the expiration of the policy.
Whether they have to tell you why
In Texas, the insurer owes you a written statement of the reason either way. That matters more than it looks: the reason is the thing you would have to dispute, and a notice that gives none is a notice that does not comply.
An insurer shall provide a written statement of the reason for a declination of a completed and submitted application for an insurance policy or a cancellation or nonrenewal of an insurance policy.
What a late or defective notice actually gets you
This is the part of the law worth knowing and the part that almost never appears in a comparison table. In Texas, the insurer’s duty to renew is not displaced — the code makes renewal the default and a compliant notice the exception to it.
an insurer must renew an insurance policy, at the request of the insured, on the expiration of the policy.
The other letter: mid-term cancellation
10 days, and this is the clock that applies when the insurer ends the policy before its expiration date rather than declining the next term.
Cancellation of a policy under Subsection (b), (c), or (d) does not take effect until the 10th day after the date the insurer mails notice of the cancellation to the insured.
What is specific to Texas
- This changed on 1 January 2026 and most published tables have not caught up. Texas used to owe you a reason only if you asked for one; H.B. 2067 struck the words “at the request of an applicant for insurance or an insured” from the section, making the written statement of the reason an unconditional duty. Tex. Ins. Code § 551.109
- The renewal is not automatic even where the insurer is in the wrong: the statute gives you the renewal at your request, and the policy still ends on the effective date of any replacement policy you take out with another carrier. Tex. Ins. Code § 551.105
- A separate section voids a cancellation made in violation of the subchapter — it “has no effect” — but by its own words it does not reach a non-renewal. The two events do not share a remedy in Texas. Tex. Ins. Code § 551.105
- Texas is one of the few states that protects the phone call itself. Ringing your insurer to ask whether something would be covered, or how a claim is filed, may not be used as a basis for non-renewal or cancellation — the statute defines that kind of call as a “customer inquiry” so long as it does not turn into an investigation or a claim. The protection covers homeowners, standard fire and farm and ranch owners policies by name. Tex. Ins. Code § 551.113(a), (b-1), (c)
- The 10-day mid-term clock only ever runs on a short list. Texas limits cancellation to non-payment of premium, a fraudulent claim, a departmental finding that continuing the policy would break the insurance code, or an increase in the hazard that is within your control — and says the insurer may cancel “only as provided by this section”. Non-renewal at the end of the term carries no equivalent list. Tex. Ins. Code § 551.104(a), (b)
What this page does not tell you
- This is what the code requires, not what a court has done with it. No case law was read. A state whose courts supply a remedy the code omits will read as silent here, and that is the honest limit of a statutory page.
- Your policy can be more generous than the statute and never less. These are floors. Your own contract may promise more notice; it cannot promise less.
- Catastrophe moratoria are a separate rule. Several states suspend non-renewals in a declared-disaster area on their own timetable, with their own trigger. Folding that into a notice period would misstate both.
- No federal answer exists to check this against. Congress left the business of insurance to the states, so the answer is genuinely different in every jurisdiction and a national number is not a thing that exists.
Two neighbouring questions are answered elsewhere: the claims file your insurer read before deciding and what your lender buys if you end up uninsured.
Sources
Every figure on this page was read from the section linked beside it and the quotations were machine-checked against the bytes of the page each was retrieved from. 0 of the 255 cells in the underlying 51-jurisdiction table rests on a secondary source.
| What it supports | Section | Tier | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which policies the statute reaches | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.102(2) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Notice required before non-renewal | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.105 | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Must the insurer state a reason | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.109, as amended by Acts 2025, 89th Leg., R.S., Ch. 940 (H.B. 2067), Sec. 7, eff. January 1, 2026 | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| If the notice is late or defective | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.105 | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Notice required for mid-term cancellation | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.104(e) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| An insurer may not treat a customer inquiry as a reason to non-renew or cancel | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.113(a), (b-1), (c) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| The grounds for a mid-term cancellation are closed, not open | Tex. Ins. Code § 551.104(a), (b) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
Other states in this set: California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Washington. All 51 jurisdictions are compared on the by-state non-renewal table.
General consumer information, not financial, tax or legal advice. State insurance codes are as published by the cited source on 2026-08-17 and change without notice; your own policy and your state’s insurance department govern.