Since the 2007 Legislative Session, admitted insurance carriers in Louisiana have been required to offer premium discounts for properties’ compliance with the building code and for installation of mitigation measures that reduce wind-related losses.

Your home may already have many of these qualifying construction techniques, which include roof bracing, secondary water barriers, opening protection, and more.  Discounts will be applied once an approved Wind Mitigation Surveyor completes a Louisiana Hurricane Loss Mitigation Survey Form and submits to your insurer.

Examples of recent discounts in Southeast Louisiana include:

As required by Act 1 of the 2023 Legislative Session, admitted insurance carriers in Louisiana must offer discounts to insureds who build or retrofit structures to FORTIFIED home or commercial standards, created by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS).   

FORTIFIED is a construction method, backed by decades of research and embraced by the insurance industry, that protects homes and commercial structures against wind, hail, and hurricane damage.  For example, FORTIFIED requires ring-shank nails, installed in an enhanced pattern, to help keep the roof deck attached to your home.

According to the Department of Insurance, the average total premium discount being offered by the top six carriers for standard FORTIFIED roofs in Louisiana is 16% for non-coastal areas and 18% for coastal areas. When considering all FORTIFIED classes, including FORTIFIED Silver and Gold, the average discount is 23%. Policyholders are advised to check with their insurer or agent to see your FORTIFIED discount, and to confirm, whether this discount is to the wind/hail portion or the total premium.

Examples of discounts provided by certain insurers, according to fortifiedhome.org, are:

Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) Dallas has a FORTIFIED Fund providing two grants – up to $15,000 to replace an existing roof or up to $7,500 for a newly constructed home.  Income-qualified homeowners (having a family income of 120% or less of AMI) may only access the funds through a participating FHLB Dallas member institution, like Metairie Bank, Eureka Homestead, and more.  Some members, like Gulf Coast Bank, are accepting applications via NGO partners, like Rebuilding Together New Orleans.

FHLB Dallas’ FORTIFIED Fund grants are available until they are exhausted or December 31, 2024, whichever occurs first. The funds, totaling $3.35M, are committed on a first-come, first-serve, homeowner-by-homeowner basis.  Contact [email protected] with questions.

For voluntarily retrofitting your residential property to bring it into compliance with the building code, you can receive a “construction code retrofitting deduction,” apply to your individual income tax.  Capped at $5,000 per structure, deductions are equal to 50% of the cost paid for the retrofit.

The taxpayer must claim the homestead exemption for the home being retrofitted and the home cannot be a rental property.  For more information, consult Department of Revenue’s bulletin at gnoinc.org/constructiondeduction.

Also, purchases of storm shutter devices for hurricane protection are excluded from state sales and use tax.

The Insure Louisiana Incentive Program was enacted during the 2022 Legislative Session to stabilize the residential and commercial market by encouraging additional property insurers to write coverage, increase competitive pressure on insurance rates, and reduce the volume of business written by the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

The program was funded with $45M in the 2023 Special Session and $10M in the 2023 Regular Session. Eight companies, including two insurers new to the Louisiana market, are participating in the program.

From April 2023 to January 2024, over 60,000 policies have been written under the program, and over 30,300 policies have been written in the Greater New Orleans region. In total, $180M in new premium has been written statewide, and $110M in our region. From $55M in grants, $220M in premiums should ultimately be written statewide, within 24 months of awards.

Top five parishes are now Jefferson (10,658), Orleans (6,034), St. Tammany (5,448), Lafayette and East Baton Rouge. Property owners in all parishes are encouraged to contact their agents for new quotes from participating companies, which include:

• Allied Trust Insurance Company
• Cajun Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange (CURE)
• Elevate Reciprocal Exchange
• Gulf States Insurance Company
• Lilypad Insurance Company
• SafePoint Insurance Company
• SafePort Insurance Company
• SureChoice Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange (SURE)

The Louisiana Fortify Homes Program will provide grants up to $10,000 for homeowners to upgrade their roofs to the FORTIFIED standards.  The grant program was funded at $30M during the 2023 Regular Session.  The program will help Louisiana homeowners strengthen roofs of their primary residences to better withstand severe weather, while receiving discounts on premiums.

The first two rounds of the grant program, open to Citizens policyholders only, occurred on October 2 and October 16, and available funding was quickly claimed.  The third round, open to policyholders of all insurers, occurred on November 6, and the fourth round followed on November 27. 3,000 grant applications are being processed; while some roofs are already complete, most homes are now being evaluated to confirm eligibility and ensure structural integrity prior to construction.

Homeowners must visit ldi.la.gov/fortifyhomes to learn more about the program and sign-up for updates on future grant rounds.  For all rounds, applications will be submitted online and accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.   Those interested in applying are encouraged to create an online profile in advance.

During the 2024 Regular Session, $20M was appropriated by the legislature to the Department of Insurance to issue additional grants.

Recent legislative reform in the 2024 Regular Legislative Session has aligned Louisiana with national norms.  Act 3 (Talbot) has standardized the fair claims process, and Act 9 (Firment) has eliminated the three-year rule.  Furthermore, the State of Louisiana and Louisiana-based businesses are championing the next generation of insurance concepts, compacts, and products.

Through Act 229 (Carver), Louisiana has established an Insurance Regulatory Sandbox, which allows the commissioner to grant a variance or waiver in order to introduce an “innovative or more efficient insurance product or service.”  The commissioner may also enter into agreements with other states for reciprocity of applications for innovation waivers.  And, through HCR53 (Glorioso), the commissioner is requested to investigate the potential for creating a Coastal Reinsurance Assistance Program.  This cooperative reinsurance product is to be developed with coastal states including but not limited to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.  Once developed, this product could be offered to “insurers at a reduced cost, and require the cost savings to be passed to consumers through reduced property insurance premiums.”

Greater New Orleans startups, part of our StartupNOLA ecosystem, are promoting creative, entrepreneurial solutions to data management and claims processes.  ForeFront360 has created an innovative, dimensional data-driven and imaging strategy to enhance property insurance efficiency and claim accuracy. The company – by working with homeowners, commercial property owners, municipalities, educational institutions and more – supports both policyholders and insurers in mitigating risks and improving the precision of both policy coverage and the claims process.  This approach not only leads to better outcomes but also fosters fairer and more effective insurance practices.  BuildSOS has launched a one-stop platform that brings together community, builders, insurers, suppliers, government, and nonprofits in a way that reduces risk, fraud, community, and anxiety.  The company allows for property owners to verify that contractors have a valid license and qualifications, which saves both the homeowner insurer money.

GNO, Inc. also served as a judge for RISE’s Flood Insurance of the Future Challenge, funding startups that improve data, analysis, and modeling to drive flood insurance affordability, flood-risk transfer, and implementation of flood mitigation measures.  GNO, Inc. is also a partner of InnSure’s $5M Insurance Innovation Prize, funded by NYSERDA,  to create new insurance solutions that will accelerate the adoption of energy transition technologies such as solar, wind, EVs, clean buildings, and more.   GNO, Inc. continues to explore partnerships with nonprofit partners like EDF and the Water Institute on new products, like parametric pilots, and programs that ensure accuracy, affordability, and availability of all types of insurance in Louisiana.