Oklahoma Insurance Professionals LLC Blog |
 Fall is roof season in Oklahoma City. The spring hail claims finally got settled, the roofers who were booked solid all summer are catching up, and a lot of new roofs are going on between now and the first hard freeze. Drive through almost any neighborhood in the metro right now and you will see a dumpster in a driveway and a crew on top of a house. That tracks. Verisk's 2025 roofing report found that roughly half of the roofs in Oklahoma took hail damage over a four-year stretch, the highest rate in the country. If yours is one of the roofs coming off this fall, there is one decision worth making before the old shingles hit that dumpster. It has to do with how the new roof gets built, and it can change what you pay for home insurance for as long as you own the house. The short version of this whole post is simple. Before you sign with a roofer, call us at Oklahoma Insurance Professionals so we can make sure the roof you are paying for earns the insurance credit it should. What a FORTIFIED Roof Actually IsFORTIFIED is a construction standard created by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a research group funded by the insurance industry. A FORTIFIED roof uses stronger nailing to hold the roof deck down, a sealed deck so water does not pour in if shingles blow off, and impact-rated shingles and edge details built to stand up to high wind and hail. From the street, it looks like any other new roof. The difference is in how it is attached and sealed, and in the paperwork that proves it. A certified FORTIFIED evaluator has to document the work, and when it passes, the house gets a designation certificate. That certificate is what your insurance company cares about, and it is what we need from you to get the discount applied. There Is a Grant to Help Pay for ItThe Oklahoma Insurance Department runs a program called Strengthen Oklahoma Homes. The money comes from the insurance industry in Oklahoma, not the state's general budget. The program offers grants of up to $10,000 toward upgrading to a FORTIFIED roof, and as of January 2026 it is open to homeowners in every county in the state, not just the pilot ZIP codes it started with. The money goes straight to the contractor when the job is done, and anything above the grant amount is on you. To qualify, the house has to be your primary residence and a single-family home. Condos, duplexes, mobile homes, and manufactured homes are not eligible. You need a homestead exemption on file with your county assessor, an active homeowners policy that includes wind coverage, and flood insurance if the house sits in a designated flood zone. When you apply, plan on uploading income verification and your insurance declarations pages. If you are not sure your policy meets the insurance requirements, ask us to confirm it before you apply. Grants go out first come, first served, and they go fast. The first application round this year filled up with 300 approvals, and another round opened July 13. Before you plan around the grant, check the Strengthen Oklahoma Homes page at OID to see whether applications are open, or give us a call and we will help you sort out where things stand. What It Does to Your Home InsuranceHomes with a FORTIFIED designation in Oklahoma get a discount on the wind portion of their homeowners premium. OID says homeowners who went through the pilot program are saving about $750 a year on average. That is an average, though, and discounts vary from one company to the next. Ask us what your carrier actually gives for a FORTIFIED roof before you decide the upgrade is worth it. The wind and hail side of an Oklahoma policy is where a lot of the cost lives. It is the same reason so many policies here carry a separate wind and hail deductible, often figured as a percentage, which I explained in our post on what your wind and hail deductible actually means. A stronger roof goes after that cost from both directions. You pay less for the coverage, and you are less likely to be paying that deductible after the next storm. The Carrier Detail Most People MissThis is the part I want every client to hear. The program is clear that admitted insurance carriers have to honor the FORTIFIED certificate and apply the discount. Surplus lines carriers are not required to. Most homeowners have never heard either term. An admitted carrier is licensed in Oklahoma and follows the state's rules on rates and policy forms. A surplus lines company can write coverage here without that same oversight, and some homeowners end up with one after a few claims or when an older roof keeps the regular market from writing the house. Do you actually know which kind of company your policy is with? If you do not, do not guess. Ask us before you spend money on an upgrade expecting a discount. We can look at your declarations page and tell you in a few minutes. And if you are with a surplus lines company now, a new FORTIFIED roof can open the door to carriers that would not quote the house before. Order Matters If a Claim Is Paying for the RoofA lot of the roofs going on this fall are being paid for by a hail claim. That does not rule you out. A home damaged by a recent storm can still qualify, as long as the damage is eligible under an insurance claim. Before you sign anything, ask us whether your policy has a FORTIFIED endorsement. With that endorsement, your insurance company can replace a roof damaged in a covered storm to the FORTIFIED standard. Without it, your claim is generally based on replacing the roof you had, and the extra work to reach FORTIFIED is a separate cost. If your policy does not have it, we can tell you whether your carrier offers it, and that is a conversation to have before the next storm, not after. If you are going the grant route, the program sets the order for you. Once your application is approved, you pick an evaluator from the program's pre-approved list. The evaluator reviews the house and writes up the scope of work, you get bids from three contractors on the program's approved list, and you choose one. You pay the evaluator's fee, and you need your grant letter in hand before any work starts. If the job starts before that letter arrives, the grant is off the table. Loop us in early so the insurance side lines up with every step. If the Grant Round Is ClosedThe discount is tied to the FORTIFIED designation, not to the grant. If applications are full or you do not qualify, you can still pay for the upgrade yourself and get the certificate. Bring in a certified FORTIFIED evaluator before the work starts, not after, and let us know first so we can confirm your carrier will honor the certificate. For some homeowners the premium savings make the extra cost worth it over the life of the roof. For others it will not pencil out, and that is fine. It is a math question for your specific house, and we can run it with you using your real premium. If you want to be ready for a future round, the easiest thing to do now is make sure your homestead exemption is filed with your county assessor. OID pointed out that the county filing window closed March 15 this year, and missing it can knock you out of eligibility. A roof is also not the only upgrade that touches your premium. I walked through the other one clients ask me about in our post on storm shelters, safe rooms, and your insurance. The everyday discounts like bundling and monitored security still stack on top, and we covered those in our guide to home insurance discounts in Oklahoma City. Once You Have the CertificateSend it to us. Do not assume the discount shows up on its own. The program asks homeowners to upload a new declarations page showing the discount, so you want to see it applied in writing. We will get the certificate to your carrier, confirm the credit shows up, and check whether the new roof changes anything else about how your home should be insured. We can also help you keep track of renewal, since the designation has to be renewed every five years to keep counting. If you are replacing a roof this fall, or you are about to file a claim that will lead to one, let Oklahoma Insurance Professionals look at your policy before the work starts. You can also call us at (405) 838-1818. We look forward to serving your insurance needs today and in the future.
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