Disaster Safety Blog

MONTGOMERY, AL ─ Coastal homeowners with FORTIFIED homes are better protected from hurricanes than those living with standard construction, a first-of-its kind study by the University of Alabama’s Center for Risk and Insurance Research (CRIR) commissioned by the Alabama Department of Insurance has shown. 

BOULDER, Colo., May 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The National Science Foundation-funded ICECHIP project—”In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains”—invites members of the media to an exclusive Media Field Day to kick off the largest hail-focused field campaign in the U.S. in more than 40 years.

LOS ANGELES/RICHBURG, SC, April 8, 2025 – The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) today released Resilient Rebuilding: A Path Forward for Los Angeles, a blueprint for rebuilding a more survivable and insurable Los Angeles after the devastating Eaton and Palisades Fires. IBHS calls on local leaders to take regulatory action to ensure critical structural and defensible space requirements and specific mitigation actions needed to make the next generation of Los Angeles homes and communities more wildfire resilient are taken during this historic rebuilding.

LOS ANGELES – (March 27, 2025) – KB Home (NYSE: KBH), one of the largest and most trusted homebuilders in the U.S., today unveiled the nation’s first new-home community that meets the home- and neighborhood-level wildfire resilience standards developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), an independent nonprofit research organization dedicated to protecting homes and communities against natural disasters.

WILMINGTON, NC – [March 21, 2025] – The North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association (NCIUA) reaffirmed its commitment to building a stronger, storm-ready North Carolina today at an event celebrating a major milestone: more than 15,000 FORTIFIED Roof™ designations statewide. The event also recognized the individuals and organizations instrumental in bringing the FORTIFIED program to North Carolina’s coastal communities.

Sacramento, CA and Richburg, SC ─ As the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and the broader Los Angeles community continue to reckon with the devastating toll of the January 2025 wildfires, a broad coalition of housing, fire science, insurance and policy experts are urging Los Angeles to rebuild using Chapter 7A building code. 

Richburg, SC, Feb. 11, 2025 – Ahead of spring storms, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) urges home and business owners to use its Thunderstorm Ready guides to prepare now to reduce avoidable damage, especially to a structure’s roof, which serves as the first line of defense against severe weather. Last year, losses from severe storms alone reached $54 billion, making it the second-highest loss year on record, driven by 17 individual billion-dollar events.

Parsippany, NJ and Richburg, SC (January 30, 2025) – GAF, a Standard Industries company and North America’s largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer, and the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), an independent, nonprofit, scientific research and communications organization, today announced an alliance to make resilient FORTIFIED™ roofs more accessible to homeowners across the country. GAF provides a variety of roofing products that comply with IBHS’s FORTIFIED Roof™ standards and is deploying critical training expertise and capabilities to help contractors identify those products and learn about FORTIFIED installation methods that help homes withstand weather events.