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By Max Dorfman, Analysis Author, Triple-I
Houses with extra trendy roofs had been capable of keep away from vital injury from Hurricane Ian, in contrast with these with older roofs, in response to a current research by the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA).
Of the 200 houses surveyed, 90 % with roofs put in earlier than 2015 had roof injury, versus 28 % for these put in after 2015, when Florida imposed new ordinances concerning how roofs are hooked up to homes and the way waterproof they should be. Certainly, when Hurricane Ian made landfall at Cayo Costa, a barrier island in Lee County, Fla., on Sept. 28, 2022, it broken 52,514 houses and different buildings within the space, inflicting an estimated $55 billion in insured losses in 2024 {dollars}.
A few of this injury, in response to the information, might have been mitigated by up to date roofs.
Historical past tells the identical story
After the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Florida took the initiative to develop progressive plans to stop hurricane injury. These modifications additional got here into impact in 2002, with a brand new give attention to roofing. Nonetheless, there have been inconsistencies within the high quality of the roofing.
“The Nineteen Seventies-era houses carried out higher than among the post-2002 new constructing code houses due to the sealed roof deck,” Leslie Chapman-Henderson, president of the Federal Alliance for Protected Houses, informed The Miami Herald. “It was a nominal value (to strengthen the roof) and a easy factor to do, but it surely made an enormous distinction.”
Now, with a renewed give attention to metallic sheet roofs—which bear the brunt of storms extra resiliently than asphalt shingle roofs—FEMA’s knowledge might drastically change the best way through which houses are constructed, and the way insurers are responding to fraudulent claims.
Insurance coverage scams set progress again
Insurers are pressured to lift the worth of protection in hurricane-prone areas in Florida due to a rash of schemes to intentionally injury roofs to qualify them for insurance coverage claims, a persisting pattern.
“Fraud drives insurance coverage charges up and harms all Florida policyholders,” Residents Property Insurance coverage CEO Tim Cerio mentioned. Nonetheless, implementing the modifications urged by the FEMA research could assist alleviate among the considerations posed by insurers—and assist owners.
“If you’re a house and evaluating its means to outlive a hurricane, the well being of the roof is the primary query to ask,” mentioned Chapman-Henderson. “It not solely will increase your efficiency within the hurricane itself, however within the present setting it might assist prevent cash in your insurance coverage.”
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