How homeowners insurance splits into six coverages
The letters the form numbers are arranging.
Standard forms, HO-1 through HO-8
Home insurance plans are numbered, and the number is the product
Home insurance plans in this market are filed forms, not tiers a company invented. Eight carry the HO prefix, and the code near the top of your declarations page says which one you hold.
A home insurance plan is a filed form, not a tier
Near the top of your declarations page, in a block headed Forms and Endorsements, sits a short code. HO-3, or the long version of it, HO 00 03 03 22.
That code is a contract filed with the insurance department of your state, and the lettering is a regulatory taxonomy, not a ladder built to sell upward.
The regulator's 2026 taxonomy lists eight forms under the HO prefix. Three of them are not about a house you own at all.
The eight types of home insurance plans, HO-1 through HO-8
| Form | Written for | Peril basis | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| HO-1 | Owner-occupied house, basic | Named peril, short list | Rarely offered now |
| HO-2 | Owner-occupied house, broad | Named peril on house and contents alike | Small, still written |
| HO-3 | Owner-occupied house, special | Open peril on the house, named peril on contents | The default |
| HO-4 | Renter | Contents only, broad named peril | Not an owner form |
| HO-5 | Owner-occupied house, comprehensive | Open peril on house and contents | A real minority |
| HO-6 | Condominium or co-op unit owner | Contents, plus the unit interest the master policy leaves | Not a house form |
| HO-7 | Mobile or manufactured home | Structure open peril, contents named peril | Often replaced by insurer programs |
| HO-8 | Older house worth less than its rebuild cost | Perils and theft close to the HO-1 | Rare, and specific |
Home insurance policy types share six lettered coverages
The lettering runs the same way across the family: Coverage A dwelling, B other structures, C personal property, D loss of use, E personal liability, F medical payments. An owner form carries all six; a renter form starts at C.
Why the HO-3 sits on almost every owner-occupied house
On 2023 data published by the NAIC in July 2026, 79.45 percent of countrywide owner-occupied homeowners exposures were written on the HO-3. Widen the base to every residential form the same collection covers, renters and condominium units included, and the HO-3 is 55.1 percent of roughly 102 million house-years. Same form, two denominators, swapped constantly.
Dwelling and other structures are open peril: the form insures against direct physical loss, then subtracts. Personal property is the reverse, insured only for damage from one of sixteen named causes, a list unchanged between the May 2011 and March 2022 editions. A cause nobody thought to list damages the siding and is paid; damages the sofa and is not.
Two causes sit outside that grant on every form. Flood is excluded and written as a separate policy, most of them through the National Flood Insurance Program; earthquake is excluded and bought back by endorsement.
What changes when you move between home insurance plans
An HO-5 lifts personal property off the named-peril list and onto the open-peril footing the building already had. Going the other way, an HO-2 pulls the dwelling onto a list too, so both halves sit on one; an HO-1 is the same shape with a shorter list. On 2023 data the HO-5 carried 12.02 percent of owner-occupied exposures, the HO-2 6.42 percent, the HO-1 1.74 percent and the HO-8 0.38 percent.
The HO-8 is not a rung on that ladder. It answers a valuation question rather than a peril one: a house whose cost to rebuild runs far past what it would sell for. The regulator calls it repair-cost coverage.
The form is the floor, and endorsements are what sits on it
A form number tells you where the contract starts, not where it ends. Endorsements attach to it and change specific lines: water backing up through a drain or sump, jewelry and firearms scheduled item by item above the category sublimit, replacement cost extended past the dwelling limit when rebuilding runs over, and the cost of bringing undamaged parts of the house up to current building code after a loss. None of those are automatic. Two houses can hold the identical form number and settle the same claim differently because one of them bought the endorsement and the other did not. Which form a company will put this house on, and which endorsements come attached, is not a lookup.
Two more are worth naming. The mold figure people have heard of is not in the base contract: it comes from the ISO Limited Fungi, Wet Or Dry Rot, Or Bacteria endorsement, HO 04 27, which adds a broad fungi exclusion and gives back a scheduled aggregate, $5,000 in the copy filed in Nevada in September 2005. Personal umbrella liability is not an endorsement at all, but a separate contract above the liability limit.
Insurance plans for house, insurance plans for home, and the words on the envelope
Those are one search typed two ways, and neither names a product. A metal or a color on the envelope is a company's name for a filed form plus a chosen set of endorsements, so two households can hold the same named package and different contracts.
Home insurance for seniors is not a separate form
Nothing in the HO lettering keys to the age of the owner, and no separate product exists.
What changes is usually occupancy. The standard form, in the May 2011 and March 2022 editions alike, drops vandalism and malicious mischief once the dwelling has been vacant more than sixty consecutive days before the loss. A snowbird season, an estate settling: one condition, and the form does not ask why.
Reading a home insurance plan against everything else
What a broader plan does to home insurance cost
Moving up the form family is a price decision too.
Judging best home insurance by what it leaves out
Exclusions are more informative than any ranking.
Not every one of the home insurance companies writes every form
Availability of a form is itself an eligibility question.
What readers ask about home insurance plans and form numbers
Where is the form number on my policy?
On the declarations page, in the block listing forms and endorsements. A code such as HO 00 03 03 22 reads as form, edition month, edition year.
What is an HO-5 policy?
The owner form on which both halves run open peril. An HO-3 already reads that way on the building; the HO-5 moves personal property across, so contents stop depending on a closed list of causes.
Is an HO-4 a homeowners policy?
It is in the same lettered family, and it is not written on a house you own. The HO-4 covers belongings on a broad named-peril basis and leaves the building to its owner.
What is an HO-6 policy on a condominium?
The unit-owner form. It covers personal property plus the part of the real-property interest the master policy leaves to the unit, which is why two units in one building can carry different amounts.
What does an HO-8 cover that an HO-3 does not?
Nothing wider. It is the narrower of the two, and an old house does not have to be written on one. Plenty sit on an HO-3.
Sources and data years
- NAIC, Homeowners Report: Dwelling Fire, Owner-Occupied, Tenant and Condominium Unit Owners Insurance . Data for 2023, published July 2026. Shares paraphrased; NAIC bars reproduction of its tables.
- NAIC, Definitions for State Regulator, Homeowners Market Data Call 2026 . Definitions issued for the 2026 data call. Source of the eight-form taxonomy.
- Insurance Services Office, Homeowners 3, Special Form . Form edition March 2022; prior edition May 2011. Structure described, never reproduced.
- Insurance Services Office, endorsement HO 04 27 09 05 . Edition September 2005, as filed with the Nevada Division of Insurance. The aggregate is a scheduled option, not a national figure. Described, not reproduced.
- Maine Bureau of Insurance, consumer guide to homeowners insurance . Updated 28 September 2021. Source of the flood, earthquake and umbrella lines.
- Hawaii Insurance Division, homeowners premium publication . Published December 2022, rates effective 1 December 2022. Source of the HO-1 line.
Page last reviewed 2026-09-23. Each figure above carries the year of its own data.