Soaring Insurance Costs Hit Owners of NYC Rent-Stabilized Units

Skyrocketing insurance costs are threatening New York City’s affordable housing stock.

The landlords who own more than 450,000 of the city’s rent-stabilized apartments saw insurance expenses grow 150% from 2019 to 2025, far outpacing every other major cost, according to a new report from New York University’s Furman Center.

The rapid rise in insurance premiums is just one of the pressures on housing in New York, part of a broader affordability crisis that helped Zohran Mamdani win the city’s highest office earlier this month. While efforts to add more units are underway, preserving the city’s roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments — about 40% of the city’s total rentals ...