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A small portion of the community cookhouse remained standing on Malden Island in Georgetown, Maine, after being damaged by a storm in January 2024. Photo by Robert F. Bukaty of the Associated Press.

Maine will help homeowners in 4 counties replace their roofs

Maine is preparing to launch a grant by early summer that will provide up to $15,000 for year-round residents in York, Cumberland, Kennebec and Penobscot counties to replace their roofs and fortify their homes against severe storms. 

The new program intends to help prevent Maine residents from having their home insurance policies canceled due to their roofs being in poor condition, which annually accounts for more than 75 percent of all home insurance non-renewals in Maine, according to Bob Carey, superintendent of the Maine Bureau of Insurance.

Carey and other officials said they are hopeful that the $15 million HoME Resiliency program will help Mainers weather future disasters while tempering home insurance rates and boosting federal flood insurance enrollment, which grant recipients in flood zones will be required to have.

See how Maine home insurance premiums compare with those in other states with this new dashboard from Grist that tracks U.S. premium price changes over the past few years. At a glance, Maine could certainly be faring worse: Its annual premiums increased by 4 percent between 2024 and 2025, while premiums in disaster-prone states such as Oklahoma increased by 24 percent that year. 

One caveat: Bob Carey, superintendent of the Maine Bureau of Insurance, has disputed past Maine-specific data from Insurify, the insurance comparison company the study Grist draws from.

While The Maine Monitor does not place its content behind paywalls, some newsrooms we link to in this newsletter may. 

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