FORTIFIED Roof, Silver, and Gold, Explained: What Each Level Requires and What It Does to Your Insurance

TL;DR: FORTIFIED is a three-level, third-party-verified building standard from IBHS, the insurance industry's research lab. Roof fixes the roof (sealed deck, better nails, locked edges, rated vents). Silver adds the openings and attached structures. Gold adds a verified roof-to-foundation load path. The engineering is well tested; the insurance discount is not a national number. Two states require it by law, several more have grant programs, and the rest vary by insurer. Ask for the filed discount before you build, not after.

The direct answer

FORTIFIED Home is a voluntary construction standard published by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), the research arm funded by the property insurance industry. [code] It exists because IBHS's full-scale wind and hail testing kept finding the same failures: roof covers peeling, water pouring through the exposed deck seams, garage doors buckling, porches lifting and taking the roof with them, and walls separating from foundations. The standard is a checklist of the fixes, in three levels, each verified by an independent evaluator who photographs the work before it is covered up.

It matters to homeowners for two reasons. First, it works; the field performance of FORTIFIED homes through Gulf Coast hurricanes, documented by IBHS and the University of Alabama's insurance research center after Sally and other landfalls, is the strongest evidence in residential resilience. [tested] Second, it is the one resilience standard insurers have built products around, so it is the closest thing to a universal translator between "I built it better" and "my premium reflects that." How much the premium reflects it is the question this page answers state by state.

Key facts

What each level requires

FORTIFIED Roof

The roof is where most wind losses begin, and it is the level nearly everyone starts with. The requirements, in substance [code]:

• Sealed roof deck. Seams between sheathing panels are sealed with approved tape, a self-adhered membrane, or a fluid-applied flashing, so that if the roof cover is lost the deck still keeps water out. IBHS full-scale testing has shown a properly sealed roof deck can reduce water entry by as much as 95 percent after the cover is lost. [tested]
• Enhanced deck attachment. Sheathing fastened with 8d ring-shank nails at tighter spacing than conventional code allows. Ring-shank nails resist withdrawal far better than smooth-shank.
• Locked-down roof edges. Drip edge and starter strips installed and fastened to the standard, with the roof cover's edge adhered, so wind cannot get under the first course.
• Wind- and rain-rated attic vents and penetrations. Off-ridge vents, gable vents, and soffits rated to resist wind-driven rain; chimneys and other penetrations properly flashed and anchored.
• Roof cover installed to the manufacturer's high-wind instructions, with the cover's wind rating matched to the site. Asphalt shingle, metal, and tile are all eligible.
• Hail track adds an impact-rated cover (Class 4).

What it is not: FORTIFIED Roof does not change your trusses, your walls, or your windows. It is a roof designation.

FORTIFIED Silver

Silver assumes the roof is done and turns to the next things that fail [code]:

• Opening protection. Every window, door, and skylight either impact-rated to the applicable standard or protected by rated shutters or panels. Mandatory in the hurricane track; the high-wind track differs.
• Garage door rated for the design wind pressure, because a failed garage door pressurizes the house and lifts the roof.
• Attached structures anchored. Porches, carports, and attached decks tied to their own foundations and to the house so they do not become levers.
• Chimneys anchored and braced; gable ends braced where applicable.

FORTIFIED Gold

Gold is a whole-house structural designation [code]:

• Continuous load path. Rated connectors at every link: roof deck to rafters/trusses, trusses to top plate, wall to wall, wall to foundation, with the path documented and verified.
• Engineering documentation. For new construction, plans showing the load path, sealed by a design professional where the standard requires it.
• Evaluator verification at framing, before the connectors are covered. This is why Gold is a new-construction decision far more than a retrofit.

Gold is what you want if you are building new on the coast and can afford the connectors. It is the level that makes a frame house behave like the engineers intended, and it is the baseline our engine assumes for a FORTIFIED wood-frame shell. [judgment]

How the evaluation works

1. Hire a FORTIFIED Evaluator from the IBHS directory, before the work starts. The evaluator is independent of your contractor and is paid by you.
2. Pre-construction review of the plans and the designation level you are targeting.
3. Stage inspections. The evaluator photographs the sealed deck before the underlayment goes on, the nail pattern before the cover, the connectors before the drywall (Gold). Missing a stage means tearing something off.
4. Documentation submitted to IBHS, which reviews and issues the designation certificate.
5. Give the certificate to your insurer and keep it with your closing documents; it travels with the house at resale.

The evaluator's fee and the designation fee are separate from construction cost. On a re-roof, ask whether the roofer has FORTIFIED experience; the sequencing is unforgiving, and a crew that covers the deck before the inspection has to uncover it.

What it costs to add

We do not publish builder pricing, and FORTIFIED cost varies with roof size, cover type, climate, and region. What we can say [judgment]:

• Roof level during a planned re-roof or new build is the cheapest resilience upgrade per dollar of risk reduced that we know of. The deck tape, the ring-shank nails, and the rated vents are a small fraction of a roofing job. IBHS and the state programs publish typical cost ranges for re-roofs.
• Silver costs what opening protection costs, which is the dominant line: impact windows and doors versus shutters, and the garage door. On a new coastal build these are often already in the budget.
• Gold on new construction adds connectors and engineering; on a retrofit it adds opening walls, which is why few existing homes go Gold.
• Several states pay for Roof. The grant programs below exist because Roof is cheap and effective, and the state's insurer of last resort benefits.

Our free plan shows the cost band for your region, and the cost-of-ownership pages put it against premium and maintenance savings over time.

Insurance: the honest state-by-state picture

This is the section people come for, and it is the section where we refuse to give a national number, because there isn't one. Discounts are filed by each insurer with each state regulator, change when filings change, and apply to the wind or hurricane portion of the premium, not the whole bill. Every figure below carries a "last verified" date in programs.json when published.

The rule we tell every client: call your agent, ask "what is your filed discount for FORTIFIED Roof / Silver / Gold in my state," and get the answer in writing. If the answer is "we don't have one," ask what wind-mitigation credits they do file and whether a FORTIFIED evaluation report satisfies their inspection requirement. Then decide. Build FORTIFIED for the house that survives; treat the discount as a bonus you have confirmed, not a projection.

What FORTIFIED does to resale and insurability

Two effects beyond the discount deserve mention. First, in high-risk markets where insurers are non-renewing, a FORTIFIED certificate is one of the few documents that can make a home writable again, because it answers the underwriter's questions with third-party photographs. [judgment] Second, a peer-reviewed study from the University of Alabama (Awondo et al., Southern Economic Journal) found an average resale premium of roughly 7 percent for FORTIFIED homes in Alabama's coastal counties, with higher premiums nearer the coast. [tested] Appraisers in most other markets do not yet credit it; the financing hub covers how to document it for them.

Where FORTIFIED fits, and where it doesn't

• Wood-frame and light-gauge steel homes are what the standard was written for. Gold is what makes them behave.
• Concrete and masonry shells (ICF, CMU, SCIP) already carry a continuous load path by nature; the Roof and Silver requirements still apply fully (the roof, vents, and openings are the same on any wall), and Gold verification is usually straightforward. [judgment]
• Flood is outside FORTIFIED's scope. A FORTIFIED Gold house on a slab in a VE zone is a well-built house that will flood. Pair it with elevation.
• Wildfire is a different standard: Wildfire Prepared Home, also from IBHS.

What we can help with

Run your free plan to see whether FORTIFIED Roof, Silver, or Gold is the right target for your site and budget, and what it is worth against your region's premiums. Our advisory work includes plan review against the standard, evaluator and contractor coordination, and the documentation package for your insurer and lender; site visits can be arranged. If you want a builder who has built FORTIFIED before, we'll introduce you and tell you plainly that the builder pays us a referral fee when you sign.

Start your plan →