re: Insurance commissioner push for reinforced roofs?

Alabama, my state, leads the nation in "gold fortified" homes. Out of 45k in the country, AL has 40k, vast majority being in Lower Baldwin County (GS, OB, Foley, etc).
There are three categories of fortified homes:

Bronze/roof fortified-sheathing underneath roof, long, screw like nails, more per square than normal. Can be metal/shingle roof

Silver-bronze + impact resistant openings (windows/doors)

Gold-bronze + silver + basically roof tied to the walls, walls tied to the foundation


Gold fortified homes are built to withstand minimum of Cat 3 hurricane winds, which Sally was. Out of the 707 claims from Sally at our agency, less than 2% of them were fortified homes, and even then, the claims were small. Nothing close to catastrophic.

Fortified homes are a win for consumer (better built home and cheaper insurance). Win for the community, as there will not be widespread damage to homes as building code upgrades will ensure that. Win for insurers, as there won't significant claims to pay out with hurricanes. The only ppl not always happy are the builders, but they generally get over it, or they won't be building homes.

Orange Beach was the first municipality to mandate gold fortified homes in 2017. Gulf Shores followed suit in 2018 or 2019. To date, they are the only cities in America that mandate this. Five states have officially adopted the standard: AL, MS, TX, OK, GA (or SC...can't remember).