Public Policy

WHAT IS FORTIFIED?

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas and Atlanta, and states ranging from Alabama to Minnesota have established grant programs to help residents make their homes more resilient to severe weather.

Based on decades of scientific research, IBHS’s FORTIFIED™ program is a set of voluntary, beyond-code construction methods that improve a building’s resistance to the effects of high winds, hail, hurricanes and even tornadoes. The FORTIFIED program is available for single-family houses, multifamily properties, and commercial structures. The program features a technical standard and an independent verification process that ensures buildings obtaining a FORTIFIED designation from IBHS have, in fact, been built to the requirements and reduced their risk. To date, more than 72,000 structures have been designated by the FORTIFIED program across 32 states.

 

FORTIFIED provides property owners with the ability to achieve three increasing levels of resilience:

 

  • FORTIFIED Roof is the starting point of a FORTIFIED home because an estimated 70 to 90 percent of catastrophic homeowners’ insurance claims include roof damage, and damaged roofs can lead to water intrusion that significantly amplifies damage. FORTIFIED Roof provides a system that strengthens the roof through (i) more and stronger nails, (ii) locked-down edges, and (iii) a sealed roof deck, which work in concert to keep the wind and rain out.
  • FORTIFIED Silver adds increased levels of resilience through requirements on windows, doors, and siding.
  • FORTIFIED Gold adds requirements related to a continuous load path from the roof to the foundation.

 

The FORTIFIED hail supplement requires impact resistant shingles rated  that show they can better protect against hail up to 2 inches in diameter. IBHS’s impact test standard is used to develop these performance ratings and is currently the most representative of natural hail of any current testing protocol for building materials.

WHY FORTIFIED GRANT PROGRAMS?

States have invested millions of public dollars in FORTIFIED grant programs because they understand the benefits of building more housing resilient to natural hazards. FORTIFIED grant programs:

  • Help families and communities affordably increase the survivability of their homes to severe weather;
  • Support the health of the insurance markets by reducing risk, leading to more consumer choices and lower costs;
  • Grow local workforces’ knowledge and use of FORTIFIED; and
  • Catalyze greater adoption of FORTIFIED in the state or region beyond initial grant funding

Only 17 percent of the more than 50,000 designations in Alabama are a result of the Strengthen Alabama Homes grant program. The rest are a result of builders choosing to construct FORTIFIED homes and homeowners choosing to invest in FORTIFIED retrofits.

Increase the survivability of homes and communities

Put simply, FORTIFIED works. It keeps roofs on and water out keeping families in their homes, businesses open, and communities thriving  That is the story we have seen play out in storm after storm.

Communities with homes that can survive the storm are better able to rebound and recover from severe weather: families stay in their homes, workers keep working, and children get back to school. This maintains the local tax base and a sense of community: a benefit to individuals and the community as a whole.

Support healthy insurance markets

Homeowners, affordable housing developers, and owners/operators currently face significant challenges navigating a challenging property insurance market. When property owners reduce their risk, everyone wins.

Resilient construction practices like FORTIFIED can help homeowners and affordable housing developers better access affordable property insurance coverage and appear more attractive to property insurers.  Studies  following Hurricane Sally (in Alabama) and Hurricanes Matthew, Florence, Dorian, and Isaias (in North Carolina) concluded that FORTIFIED designated homes are less likely to have an insurance claim and, for those homes with insurance claims, claims are smaller on average.

As a result, many insurers voluntarily offer  —such as wind premium discounts—for homes with FORTIFIED designations. In some states, pricing considerations are mandated by law or regulation.

Catalyze private FORTIFIED growth

In addition to creating more resilient housing, investments in FORTIFIED can have an important impact on the workforce and skills development. Government investments in FORTIFIED in Alabama and Louisiana have created opportunities to educate local developers, builders, and contractors about FORTIFIED. After these essential stakeholders become familiar with the standard and costs associated with FORTIFIED, they have voluntarily decided to continue to build to FORTIFIED.

In this way, initial investments in FORTIFIED pays dividends and can have an even broader impact on a community’s built environment and significantly increase the number of people who live and do business in resilient homes and buildings.

Build and retrofit homes affordably

Building homes that are resilient to natural hazards is affordable and within reach. IBHS offers three tiers of protection (Roof, Silver, and Gold) which allows property owners and developers to mitigate risks within their budget. Additional costs will vary by jurisdiction, based on what is already required by the local building code.

Communities that have adopted and enforced a modern building code are much closer to reaching FORTIFIED’s building standards than communities lacking modern building codes. Accordingly, the costs to reach FORITIFED will be much smaller for communities with a modern building code than those without one.

For single family housing, building to FORTIFIED adds $1,000 – $3,000 plus evaluation costs when reroofing and 0% – 3% of house hard costs plus evaluation costs for new construction. For multifamily housing, costs can vary significantly due to the variety of building and roof types. While evaluation costs are only a few thousand dollars  for FORTIFIED Home, FORTIFIED Commercial and Multifamily costs differ as developers or property owners contract with an evaluation company, which generally charges an hourly rate.

A 2022 study from the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business demonstrates a strong ROI for these investments. The researchers found that building or retrofitting to FORTIFIED Multifamily has relatively minimal costs and a strong rate of return.

  • The study found that property owners could realize an 8.1 to 72 percent internal rate of return on a marginal cost increase of no more than 1.5 percent of total cost of construction for constructing a property to the FORTIFIED Gold level.
  • For investments in retrofitting an existing multifamily building to FORTIFIED Roof, a property owner could realize an 8.3 to 35 percent internal rate of return on the investment in the necessary retrofits.

WHERE ARE FORTIFIED GRANT PROGRAMS OFFERED?

FORTIFIED grant programs are offered by several federal, state, and local entities.

Federal Programs

Multistate Programs

State Programs

As of February 2025, seven states have established statewide grant programs to help residents pay to retrofit their new home to IBHS’s FORTIFIED standards. While eligibility and program requirements vary state to state, most grant programs offer grants up to $10,000 and are open to homeowners living in single-family homes.

Strengthen Alabama Homes, established in 2011, was the initial state-led program and has provided more than $70 million in funding and helped more than 7,000 residents install FORTIFIED roofs.

 

FORTIFIED State Grant Programs

HOW ARE PROGRAMS FUNDED?

FORTIFIED grant programs are funded through various federal, state, and private funding sources.

Federal Funding:U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s CDBG-DR Universal Notice,GRRP, and CDBG programs.

State Funding: Funding sources for state grant programs vary state to state, but they can include funds from the state’s general fund, surplus lines associations like in Mississippi, or from agent licensure fees like in Alabama.

Private Funding:  FHLB Dallas and FHLB Atlanta’s AHP and FHLB Dallas’s FORTIFIED Fund programs and funds from NCIUA’s underwriting surplus.

 

HOW CAN I LEARN MORE?

To learn more about FORTIFIED grant programs, please reach out to Michael Newman at mnewman@ibhs.org.