IBHS News Releases

St. Joseph, MO - The largest Fortified…for safer living® Habitat for Humanity home in the country is now complete and has been handed over to a family of nine.

The five-bedroom, two-story 1800 square foot house on Pendleton Street in St. Joseph, Missouri, is now home to Mary and Paul Frazier and their seven children.  The Fraziers worked for seven months alongside hundreds of employees and agents from American Family Insurance, which provided $50,000 in financial support and organized volunteer workers from the company’s regional office in St. Joseph.

As the project sponsor, American Family purchased the building materials for the home. When word of the sponsorship circulated through the St. Joseph facility, American Family employees took the initiative to provide approximately 90 percent of the volunteer labor during weekends, weeknights and days off.

“In some ways, I feel American Family got more out of this project than we put in,” said Ranger Duran, American Family’s St. Joseph-based vice president of sales. “In partnering with Habitat for Humanity to help this hard-working family achieve their dream of home ownership, American Family employees and other volunteers learned a lot about themselves and their capacity for caring and giving.”

In response to the area’s risks from wind and hail, tornadoes and severe winter weather, the home was constructed to the Fortified …for safer living® standard.  Fortified is the national new-home construction designation of the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), which incorporates simple but effective improvements like impact-resistant shingles, reinforced windows, and additional roof and foundation bracing to increase the home’s disaster-resistance.  This is the sixth Fortified Habitat home in the country.

Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) also participated in the project, and presented the family with a safety kit which includes escape ladders, fire extinguishers, cabinet locks, safety plugs for electrical outlets, and a first aid kit. In addition, UL representatives accompanied the Fraziers on a safety walk-through of their new home and certified the seven Frazier children as “UL Safety Smart!”

IBHS is a national nonprofit initiative of the insurance industry that works to reduce the social and economic effects of natural disasters and other property losses by conducting research and advocating improved construction, maintenance and preparation practices.