Rates for homeowners insurance have remained flat for most of 2015—and all signs point to more of the same in the foreseeable future.

But that doesn’t mean you and your clients should be content sticking with the status quo. “If people haven’t taken their accounts into the market in the last four or five years, now would be a good time,” says Bill Gatewood, vice president of personal insurance at Burns & Wilcox. “There’s a lot of very competitive pricing and underwriting appetite is broadening.”

Pricing structures for homeowners insurance can differ dramatically depending on where you’re selling insurance, says Richard Kerr, MarketScout CEO: “What’s happening in northern California is different than southern is different than Texas is different than Tennessee.” Not surprisingly, homeowners insurance price points are “more sensitive” anywhere there’s a cat exposure, including wind, quake, brush and flood, he notes.

“For anything touching the water or in a quake area, you’ll see the volatility factor there for both traditional and high-value homeowners jumping around a lot more,” Kerr says. “If we have a big wind event in Florida, that’s going to drive prices up really fast.” By contrast, “if you’re in the heartland, it’s pretty stable.”

But in general, traditional homeowners with Coverage A and properties valued less than $1 million face a “steady and competitive” insurance marketplace, Kerr says. “Are the rates going down 20%? No,” Kerr says. “It’s competitive today and it’s going to stay competitive, but you’re not going to see prices just start driving down.”

Why? “There are a couple of things that are going to keep price increases from accelerating,” says Alan Dobbins, director and senior research analyst with the insurance research group at Conning. “One of those is the reinsurance market. Pricing there has been down for the last couple of years and is down now. That feeds into reduced pricing for homeowners.”

Dobbins points out that since 2007, the industry has witnessed a “deconsolidation” in homeowners insurance. “If you follow homeowners over the 10-15 years prior to that, there’s pretty steady consolidation as the bigger insurers got bigger and gathered more market share,” he says. “Following catastrophe events in 2005 and certainly in 2008, the large insurers began to pull back and allocated less capacity to homeowners.”

But now, it’s a different story. “The last two years we’ve seen the share held by the top 10 [homeowners carriers] pick up,” Dobbins says. “The pricing has gotten back in line as indicated by pretty successful results in 2013-2014.”

Personal lines insurers are also becoming more interested in the line as concerns mount about maintaining market share in the private passenger auto market. “They may look out and say, ‘Wait a minute, our biggest line may not grow like it has been—we need to rethink and reallocate our resources,’” Dobbins says.

“There are so many players in that market—dozens and dozens of insurers,” Kerr adds. “They have really become so efficient at getting all of the expense loads out. It’s a strong market. Whenever you start looking at that in a competitive environment, you’re not going to see big jumps around there.”

What homeowners insurance niches and trends should you keep an eye on to grow your personal lines book? Stay tuned to IAmagazine.com and next week’s Markets Pulse e-newsletter to find out.

Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.