What actually happens after you answer the questionnaire.

Every market that might insure your home wants the same facts. That includes the address, the year built, the roof's age and material, the updates to plumbing and electrical, and the claims history. Casa asks for them once. Each insurer the search reaches rates that same set of answers.

That is the quiet difference between a search and a scavenger hunt. The usual way to shop a hard-to-place home is to retype the same details into site after site.

Or you repeat them to each agent who calls. Then you hope the versions stay consistent.

Here the questionnaire is the whole ask. Everything after it is the search doing its work.

The search leads with standard insurers, and that order is for your benefit. A standard insurer files its prices with the state, its customers are backed by California's state guaranty fund, and its price is usually lower. If one of them will take your home, that is the answer you want, and the search is built to surface it.

If a standard insurer quotes your home, those are the quotes you see. If the standard insurers say no, the search goes on to the specialty insurers. That is the part of the market built for the homes standard insurers turn down.

In 2025 the specialty market wrote more than 300,000 California home policies, according to the Surplus Line Association of California. Most homeowners have never had it searched at all, because its policies are sold only through licensed agents and brokers.

Both steps run off the same answers, in one search, so you never start over. Standard and specialty quotes are never shown together: you see one kind or the other.

When the search finishes, the quotes it found show on your screen. We also email you a link, so you can come back to them. These are prices from each insurer's own rating of your answers, not averages or a promise that someone will call. The insurer sets the final price after its review. When nothing comes back, you get a straight answer and a next step, not a dead end.

A quote is more than its bottom line, so each one shows you what you would actually be agreeing to. These are the numbers worth comparing carefully.

• The yearly price for your home, based on the insurer's own rating of your answers.
• The rebuild coverage amount, which should track what it would actually cost to rebuild your home.
• The deductible (the part of a claim you'd pay yourself), including any separate deductible that applies to specific risks.
• For specialty insurance options, the taxes and fees, itemized as line items rather than folded into the price.

Some homes cannot be quoted online, and the honest version of a search says so instead of pretending. An insurer may want someone to look closer. The home may be unusual in a way a rating system cannot price. Or the answers that came back may need judgment to read.

When that happens, a licensed agent takes over and looks at your home personally. Not a call center, and not a list of strangers who bought your number. You hear back by email within 24 hours, with your quotes or an update. Whatever they find, you get a real answer about what is possible.

Nothing is final until you choose. When you pick a quote, a licensed agent reviews your application and finalizes the policy with the insurer. That happens within 24 hours of your choice, once your payment details are in.

After that, updates come by email, and so does word when the policy is in place. If your agent has a question, they may call or email you. If bank details cannot be saved online, your agent contacts you to set up payment.

You can ask who the insurer is, and how it is rated, any time before anything is final. The rating is an independent grade of the insurer's ability to pay claims. If a specialty quote does not name its insurer yet, your agent confirms it before the policy starts.

A specialty policy comes with real paperwork, and we handle it for you. That includes the short state notice you sign before a specialty policy starts, put in front of you before you commit. There is always someone to ask if a line is unclear.

That is the whole thing: one questionnaire, standard insurers first, your quotes on screen or a straight answer. Licensed people stand behind the parts that need a person. The rest is your decision, made with the whole picture in front of you.