There are many factors that contribute to premium increases. The biggest one is the increase in insurance claim costs across the whole insurance industry. Insurance companies use the premiums they collect to pay claims. When the cost of settling claims increases, premiums have to increase to cover the cost.
We can attribute a sizable chunk of the increased costs to large-scale natural disasters like forest fires and floods, which are happening more often and getting more destructive. For example, insurance companies paid $1.9 billion in claims following the 2013 Alberta floods and $3.7 billion following the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire.
It may not seem fair that your premiums increase if you haven’t made a claim yourself. But, that’s the mechanism by which insurance works: pooling the premiums of many people to cover the losses of the unfortunate few.
If your renewal rate is too high, talk to your insurer about what you can do to reduce it. Increasing your deductible is always an option. They may also suggest some things you can do to your home to reduce the risk of a loss, like installing a backwater valve or modernizing the plumbing system in an older home.