Coastal home insurance costs
in Myrtle Beach, SC.

The direct answer

Average home insurance cost in Myrtle Beach

Typical single-family policies here run about $1,500 to $3,500 a year in the standard market. National comparison sites that price one standardized $300,000 house put Myrtle Beach zip codes above $5,000 a year, the highest in South Carolina and roughly double the inland cities. Both numbers are real. The gap between them is the actual lesson: on the coast, quotes on the same house vary by thousands of dollars, so the person who shops wins. Premium benchmarks come from the South Carolina Department of Insurance; check any address's flood zone free at the FEMA Map Service Center.

South Carolina home insurance rose about 10 percent in 2025, roughly double the national pace. The state insurance department attributes the pressure to repair-cost inflation, reinsurance costs, and rising home values. No carrier exodus has happened here, but several national companies slowed new coastal business in 2024 and 2025, which makes shopping across many carriers matter even more.

The bigger surprise for buyers from inland states is not the price. It is that "insurance" on the coast can mean three separate policies. That is the next section.

The structure

Homeowners, wind, and flood: the three coastal policies

• 1.Homeowners. Fire, theft, liability, the standard package. On the coast, check what it excludes before you check the price.
• 2.Wind and hail, sometimes separate. Close to the beach, roughly east of Highway 17 Business, South Carolina lets insurers exclude wind from the homeowners policy. About 1 in 6 coastal policies are written that way. The wind coverage then comes from another carrier or from the state's wind pool, the insurer of last resort. Two premiums instead of one.
• 3.Flood, always separate. No homeowners policy covers flood, anywhere, at any price point. Flood coverage is its own federal or private policy. Statewide, federal flood policies average roughly $740 to $930 a year; high-risk beach and inlet properties pay well more.

Then the deductible math. Coastal policies use percentage deductibles for named storms, usually 1 to 5 percent of the dwelling coverage. On a $400,000 house, 2 percent means the first $8,000 of hurricane damage is yours. At 5 percent, $20,000. Two policies can carry the same premium and be thousands of dollars apart in a storm. We read the deductible page, not just the quote.

The flood map myth

Myrtle Beach flood zones: Zone X does not mean no flood risk

Buyers read "Zone X" on the flood map and hear "does not flood." The map does not say that. It says the lender will not force you to buy flood insurance. FEMA's own numbers: more than 1 in 4 flood claims come from outside the high-risk zones. In Horry County, thousands more properties face real flood risk than sit inside the mapped zones that require coverage.

Two pieces of good news. Horry County's participation in the federal Community Rating System takes 25 percent off flood premiums countywide. And for lower-risk homes, a flood policy is often a few hundred dollars a year, cheap insurance against the claim category most likely to surprise you.

The map also says nothing about the past. A house can sit in Zone X and still have flooded before, and sellers do not always volunteer that. We pull the flood zone on every property we show, and when the history matters, we dig for it: how to find out if a house really flooded.

Rentals pay more

Landlord and short-term rental insurance: renting changes every policy

Investment property costs more to insure, and the penalty for not telling your insurer is worse than the premium. A long-term rental needs a landlord policy, typically 15 to 25 percent above an owner-occupant policy. Short-term rental use needs coverage written for short-term rentals. And federal flood insurance charges non-primary homes a $250 annual surcharge instead of $25, with premiums allowed to climb 25 percent a year instead of 18 as rates move toward full risk.

A client of ours went through exactly this. He was planning to move out, buy his next home, and turn his current house into an Airbnb, and he asked us how to set the house up for short-term guests. When his insurance company learned the home was being rented on Airbnb, they called him and raised his flood premium by more than 25 percent. He told us. We re-shopped the policy across our network of insurance agents the same way we did when he bought the house, and an agent who had not been the cheapest option the first time won the business now. His increase landed at about 10 percent instead of 25.

Two lessons. Rental use gets discovered, so declare it and price it from the start, our investment analyzer budgets the landlord premium into the cash flow. And the carrier that was right for you as an owner-occupant is often not the right one for you as a landlord. Shop the change, not just the purchase.

Condos

Condo insurance in Myrtle Beach: the HO-6 policy plus the master policy

A condo owner carries an HO-6 policy (a condo owner's walls-in coverage) for the unit's interior and contents, commonly $40 to $60 a month here. The building itself is covered by the HOA's master policy, paid through your dues, and that is where the increases happened: master policy premiums on oceanfront buildings roughly doubled or tripled between 2022 and 2025, and HOA dues rose with them. The market has been stabilizing since, with many associations finding cheaper wind coverage again, but the dues increases already happened.

Three things we check on every condo purchase: whether the master policy is "walls-in" or "bare walls," because bare walls means your HO-6 has to rebuild everything from the drywall inward; the master policy's deductible, because storm deductibles get passed to owners as special assessments; and your HO-6 loss assessment coverage, which usually defaults to $1,000 and can be raised to $25,000 or more for a few dollars a month. That last one is the cheapest protection in this market.

Full picture of condo ownership costs, insurance included: Are Myrtle Beach condos a good investment?

Paying less

How to lower coastal home insurance costs: six ways

• ✓A fortified roof, partly paid by the state. South Carolina's SC Safe Home program grants up to $7,500 toward a storm-rated roof retrofit on owner-occupied homes. Horry County owners won 294 of those grants in 2025, more than any county in the state, and grantees report premium cuts up to 24 percent. Applications open in windows, so get on the list early.
• ✓Wind mitigation credits. Shutters, roof straps, impact glass. State law requires insurers to tell you at every renewal which discounts exist. A wind mitigation inspection costs a couple hundred dollars and can trim the wind portion of the bill for years.
• ✓Deductibles you choose on purpose. Raising the named-storm percentage lowers the premium. Pair it with South Carolina's Catastrophe Savings Account, which lets you bank the deductible free of state income tax.
• ✓Shop through independent agents. One coastal quote is not a market. Our re-shop of that flood policy cut a 25 percent increase to 10. The state insurance department even runs a free locator service for owners who get stuck.
• ✓Document your elevation. For flood pricing, first-floor height matters. An elevation certificate can reprice a policy, and private flood quotes are worth comparing against the federal program.
• ✓Buy the right house. Roof age, construction year, elevation, and which side of Highway 17 Business it sits on all price in. We give you the insurance costs before you offer, not at closing.

Know the Myrtle Beach insurance bill before you offer.

Send us the address. We pull the flood zone, flag wind territory, and get real quotes from our network of agents so the premium never surprises your budget.

Common questions

Myrtle Beach home insurance FAQ