FORTIFIED, and the money behind it

What the standard is actually specifying

FORTIFIED is a construction standard published by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, and the Roof level is the entry point. It is not a brand of shingle. It is a set of requirements about the parts of a roof assembly that fail first in high wind, which is almost never the shingle itself.

Three things carry most of the weight. The deck has to be fastened to the framing to a specified pattern, which usually means ring shank nails at a tighter spacing than ordinary code. The seams of the deck have to be sealed so that if the covering comes off, the house underneath still does not fill with water. And the edges have to be detailed properly, because edges and corners are where uplift pressure concentrates and where a roof starts coming apart.

The logic is straightforward. A house whose covering blows off but whose sealed deck holds is a house with a repair bill. A house whose deck lets go is a house with a total loss inside it.

The grant, step by step

Strengthen Alabama Homes will cover mitigation costs up to ten thousand dollars on an existing home. There is no income test. What there is instead is a set of hard conditions, and it is worth knowing them before you get your hopes up.

The house has to be an owner occupied single family home that you claim as your primary residence. Condominiums, townhouses and mobile homes do not qualify. The house has to be in good repair already, you need active homeowners coverage, you have to show wind coverage once the work is done, and the program asks for prior year tax returns. Awards run against a county schedule published on the program's own site rather than being open everywhere all the time.

The money is tied to the standard rather than to the roof. The program does not pay for a standalone roof replacement, and it does not pay for windows, doors or shutters unless the roof mitigation scope requires them. If your roof is simply worn out, that part is yours.

The people involved are prescribed too. The contractor must be approved by the program and hold an Unlimited Alabama Home Builder's license. The evaluator must be approved by IBHS, is a separate person from the contractor, and is paid by you rather than by the program. The program pays the contractor only after the work has been verified.

Applications are electronic only, there are seven day windows to respond at each stage, and once you are awarded you have ninety days.

What the discount is worth

Published ranges put the wind portion discount at roughly 25 to 35 percent for a Roof designation, rising through Silver and Gold to around 55 percent at the top. Two cautions. That is a discount on the wind portion of the policy, not on the whole premium, and the wind portion is a different share of the bill in Mobile than it is in Birmingham. And it is what carriers publish rather than a rate your own carrier has promised you.

Ask your agent what the number is on your policy before you decide anything on the strength of it. It is a two minute phone call and it turns an estimate into a fact.

Doing it without the grant

Plenty of people here go FORTIFIED without a grant, simply because the roof is due and the extra cost over a standard job is smaller than most expect once the roof is already off. The deck fastening and the sealed seams are cheap when the covering is up. They are expensive later because getting at them means taking the covering off again.

That is the real argument, and it applies whether or not the state is paying. If the roof is coming off anyway, this is the moment. What that job involves is on the replacement page.