July 21, 2025

More Insurers Offering Incentives to Fortify Homes Against Natural Disasters: What’s the Catch?

A growing number of insurers are offering incentives to fortify homes against natural disasters.

Some insurers offer discounted premiums after you install a stronger roof, for example. Other insurers are even offering government-funded grants on the installation of the roof itself.

Fortifying your home doesn’t reduce the risk of a natural disaster, but it does reduce the risk of damage from that disaster – and it could even save your life.

What’s the catch behind home fortification incentives? How do they work? Let’s find out.

How Home Fortification Incentives Work

Home fortification incentives reward homeowners who take steps to reduce the risk of storm damage.

Home fortification is based on risk analysis: if a homeowner creates a 100-foot fire break around a property in a wildfire-prone area of Colorado, for example, then that homeowner has significantly reduced the risk of losing the property to a wildfire. They’re passing less risk onto the insurer, and the insurer responds by reducing premiums.

Typically, home fortification incentive programs work like this:

The insurer announces a home fortification incentive program. Some programs are funded by local governments. Others come from the insurer. Some come from special interest groups, like a group of local insurance companies.
Homeowners verify eligibility, then apply. Many states have a lottery system to distribute a certain amount of pre-allocated funds each year.
A contractor completes installation to the standards of the program. Then, the insurer verifies the fortification system is installed and functioning as it’s supposed to. Then, the insurer rewards the homeowner with a grant (say, $5,000 off the installation of the system), lower premiums (say, a 10% discount on annual homeowners insurance premiums), or other financial incentives.

Types of Home Fortification Incentive Programs

Home fortification incentive programs are appearing in a growing number of states. Some – like the FORTIFIED Homes program – are found in multiple states.

Some of the best-known home fortification incentive programs available today include:

FORTIFIED Homes & FORTIFIED Roofs

A group of insurance companies came together to create the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).

The IBHS launched a program called FORTIFIED. It’s a voluntary construction and roofing certification program.

A FORTIFIED Roof goes above and beyond the requirements of ordinary building codes, strengthening the roof against winds, hail, hurricanes, and tornadoes.

Some of the things that make a FORTIFIED Roof stronger include:

Stronger edges to prevent wind uplift
Ring-shank nails to double the holding strength of the roof
Enhanced nailing patterns for increased durability
Sealed roof deck to protect against water intrusion

North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association’s FORTIFIED Roof Program

Residents of coastal North Carolina buy wind and hail coverage through the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association (NCIUA).

In 2019, the organization launched a program incentivizing homeowners to install FORTIFIED Roofs. The pilot program gives eligible homeowners a grant of $6,000 to $10,000 towards fortifying the roof, with grants awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis.

In addition to receiving a grant, homeowners with a FORTIFIED Roof could also save up to $700 per year off their NCIUA coverage.

The NCIUA approved the FORTIFIED Roof incentive pilot program after testing from the Institute for Advanced Analytics at NC State confirmed that a FORTIFIED Roof performed significantly better during storms.

Homeowners in coastal North Carolina can learn more by visiting StrengthenYourCoastalRoof.com

Strengthen Alabama Homes Program

Strengthen Alabama Homes offers grants of up to $10,000 for homeowners to upgrade their roofs to standards set by the FORTIFIED Home initiative mentioned above.

Run by the Alabama Department of Insurance, the Strengthen Alabama Homes program seeks to limit the damage caused by storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe weather.

You may be eligible if your primary residence is in Mobile County or Baldwin County, Alabama. You must agree to retrofit or mitigate your home to the FORTIFIED Home standard by either re-roofing or performing other upgrades.

According to the Alabama Department of Insurance, homeowners who upgrade their roof to FORTIFIED or Silver levels can save 35% to 45% off their wind insurance premiums.

Louisiana Fortify Homes Program (LFHP)

Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance Tim Temple announced the Louisiana Fortify Homes Program (LFHP) in 2023.

Inspired by the Strengthen Alabama Homes Program, the LFHP offers grants of up to $10,000 to homeowners who upgrade their roofs to FORTIFIED standards.

Since launch, the program has issued more than 2,430 FORTIFIED Roof grants across the state. As the commissioner explains, this mitigation makes Louisiana a more attractive place for insurers to do business, limiting risk and protecting homes and lives. An additional 6,652 homeowners have upgraded their roofs to FORTIFIED standards without a grant.

Texas Windstorm Insurance Association Incentive Program

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) offers insurance credits if you build your home in a certain manner or install exterior opening protection.

The organization also offers discounts for new homes constructed in accordance with the International Residential Code (IRC) or the International Building Code (IBC).

You could also qualify for discounts if you retrofit your exterior openings (like doors and windows) with windborne debris-resistant products.

The program applies to homeowners in the TWIA’s “Catastrophe” zone. Those include residents of Texas’s First Tier Counties: Aransas, Brazoria, Calhoun, Cameron, Chambers, Galveston, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Matagorda, Nueces, Refugio, San Patricio, Willacy. It also covers certain cities east of State Highway 146 in Harris County, including La Porte, Morgan’s Point, Pasadena, Seabrook, and Shoreacres.

You can learn more about the incentive program and how it works at the Texas Department of Insurance website.

Florida Incentive Programs

Florida has multiple incentive, grant, and financing programs targeting homeowners, including:

Florida Hurricane Loss Mitigation Program: Launched by Florida’s Division of Emergency Management after Hurricane Andrew, the Hurricane Loss Mitigation Program offers grants for retrofitting residential, commercial, and mobile home properties. Each year, the organization spends $3.5 million on grants across the state.
Florida Individual Assistance Program: Florida’s Individual Assistance (IA) program offers financial help to individuals, households, and businesses recovering from disasters and emergencies. It coordinates assistance at the federal level (through FEMA) and local level (through state, local, and volunteer organizations) to bring assistance to those in need.
Florida Wind Insurance Savings Calculator: Many Florida insurers offer considerable savings for investing in your property. The Florida Wind Insurance Savings Calculator is a state-run webpage explaining how those incentives work and how to qualify. The website looks dated, but it helps homeowners discover available incentive programs.
Florida Property Assessed Clean Energy Program: Don’t have the cash for a home improvement project? Florida’s Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program connects homeowners with financing options for energy-efficient and hurricane-resistant home improvement projects. The organization covers the cost of your project today, then adds a small assessment to your property tax bill to finance that improvement over a long term.

Other State Incentive Programs

Other states have their own incentive programs, including:

What’s the Catch?

There’s no “catch” to these programs above. You genuinely get rewarded for strengthening your home to certain standards.

However, some of the things to consider include:

Lottery-based systems. Many organizations have limited funding. They can’t simply authorize improvements to every eligible home in a state. Many require you to enter and win a lottery to receive funding.
May not cover full cost of home retrofitting. Some organizations provide grants of $5,000 to $10,000. Depending on the level of retrofitting or construction required, this may or may not cover the full cost of installation.
Some contractors raise rates. Some contractors have been caught raising rates because of the grants, effectively pocketing the grant money. In other words, you might have paid $10,000 for a roof retrofit on its own, but the contractor charges you $15,000 because they know you have a $5,000 grant.
Not available in all areas. Typically, home fortification programs are available in higher-risk coastal areas, like wind-prone regions of the coastal southeastern United States.
Limited funding. Florida’s Hurricane Loss Mitigation program has good intentions. But the organization has a total annual budget of $7 million (with just $3.5 million going towards home retrofitting projects). This small budget limits the organization’s effectiveness in a state of 23 million people.
Not available in all homes. Your home’s age, condition, or other factors could make you ineligible for the program.

As long as you understand these restrictions, however, there’s no real catch to home fortification incentive programs. These programs allow you to genuinely retrofit a home to strengthen its resilience – and your insurer or state could reward you for doing so.

Stephanie Corona

Stephanie is a property insurance claim expert with over 20 years of experience working as an insurance adjuster, expert witness, appraiser and umpire. She is passionate about sharing her expertise, knowledge, tips and training to help both property owners and Public Adjusters in their pursuit of effectively managing claims and recovering the claim settlement they deserve after a loss.