In push to storm-proof homes, many Louisianans fall through the cracks
The state Department of Insurance website had crashed, overloaded with applicants for a coveted spot in a new program that gave 3,000 homeowners $10,000 apiece to put on a new "fortified" roof, with the goal of lowering sky-high home insurance rates. Finally, Ferretti got through, and qualified.
But, like more than 600 other grantees, Ferretti never got a fortified roof through the program. When he paid $300 for the required inspection, the evaluator informed him his townhome didn't qualify because it shared 12 inches of roof space with the unit next door, which wasn't getting fortified.
"That was like winning the lottery," he said. "Who wins a new $10,000 grant for a new roof and has it yanked out from under you?"
Fortified roofs and other measures to strengthen homes have emerged as crucial tools that could allow south Louisianans to remain in their homes as climate change and other factors drive insurance costs to unprecedented levels. But the state's first big effort to help people protect their homes is experiencing growing pains. Nearly 1 in 4 of the lucky first batch of grantees — 643 in all — are no longer in the program, either because they didn't qualify, dropped out or stopped participating, according to the Insurance Department.
Louisiana requires each roof to be professionally evaluated before the state will release the $10,000 grant. Several evaluators told The Times-Picayune — The Advocate that it's common for people to drop out of the program because they can't afford the out-of-pocket costs, often amounting to several thousand dollars, or because their roof doesn't meet the required standards to add a stronger one. Often, that's because the home is old and has structural issues that would need to be retrofitted.
Affordable-housing groups have covered some homeowners' extra costs. And the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, part of a network of member-owned cooperatives set up by Congress, has set up its own program, giving grants of up to $15,000 per home to upgrade to the fortified standard. On Friday, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced the city was spending $500,000 in federal funds to fortify about 35 roofs around the city.
LSU researchers recently landed a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help accelerate the building of fortified roofs. The researchers are trying to brainstorm ways to put fortified roofs on elevated manufactured homes in high-risk areas.
However, such resources are only available to low-income homeowners. Ferretti, a high school geometry teacher, said he made too much to get assistance, though his income is modest enough that his costs are becoming untenable.
He was paying around $3,000 in premiums a year before his insurer, Southern Fidelity, went broke in a wave of insurer collapses in 2021 and 2022. In part because his roof is more than 20 years old, Louisiana Citizens — the state-backed insurer of last resort — is now his only option. His premium has more than doubled. He has been driving for Uber to fill the gaps.
"I don't have the money to put a new roof on right now," Ferretti said. "I'm just hoping it can withstand what it can...I don't have $10,000 to shell out."
Thousands of grants
Tom Travis, head of the Department of Insurance's roofs program, said people have dropped out for a number of reasons.
"Most of them do not have the means to pay the out-of-pocket expenses," Travis said.
John Ford, a department spokesperson, said the agency may soon look to nonprofits to help fill in the gaps for people who can't afford the costs. Next year, the agency will push to set up a permanent funding stream for the program by setting up a fee system for insurance companies.
The agency also touted the number of grants it has doled out in the seven months since the program started, especially compared to Alabama, which rolled out its program much more slowly when it began in 2011. Commissioner Tim Temple, who took office this year, has said that Louisiana "jumped off a cliff" before figuring out all of the details.
In all, the Insurance Department got 3,150 grant applications. Of those, 807 are completed, 161 have new roofs pending certification and 412 are in progress with a contractor, Ford said. Another 1,127 haven't picked a contractor yet.
Climate stress
The insurance crisis has emerged as perhaps the most immediate symptom of climate change in Louisiana and other risk-prone states. In the New Orleans area, only a handful of insurance companies — mostly smaller regional firms — are willing to write policies.
And even those companies are increasingly concerned about the age of roofs.
"We have clients who still have Katrina roofs," said Rachel Langkopp, an agent at Esplanade Insurance Agency. "The insurance company is not confident your 20-year-old roof that's gone through five storms is going to hold up."
Langkopp, like Ferretti, was selected for the program but dropped out. She said she didn't have time to jump through all the hoops, which include paying for an evaluation and getting multiple bids, and her roof is relatively new anyways.
Though she didn't do it, Langkopp said getting a stronger roof is worth it for homeowners in south Louisiana. That's especially true of people on Citizens, which by law charges 10% over market rates.
Louisiana modeled its fortified roof program after Alabama's, but unlike that state, the Republican-dominated Legislature here has refused to require insurers to offer a specific discount. That means many homeowners who have installed fortified roofs still aren't getting significant relief.
Even so, for people on Citizens, a fortified roof can make the home attractive to private insurers, which should be able to save the homeowner money, Langkopp said.
In the meantime, people are struggling.
"We see it every day — people calling because their mortgages went up so much," Langkopp said. "'It went up $1,000, $1,200 a month. Who has that kind of money?"
"We're seeing people who are probably going to go into foreclosure."
Rush to retrofit
Ashley van der Meulen has been "inundated" with calls from people who got roof grants, asking his company to come inspect their homes.
Van der Meulen himself won a grant for his home in Metairie. But like many homeowners whose houses he inspects, he ran into problems. His roof was going to have to be completely redone to meet the fortified standard. Even with the grant, he was still going to spend $25,000 of his own money.
Instead, he did what he advises others to do when they run into similar problems. He got a wind mitigation survey, which involves a less-rigorous, cheaper retrofit to seal the roof. That cut his insurance premium from $11,000 to $6,000.
He said a lot of grant recipients dropped out over costs. Many New Orleans homes, particularly older houses in the French Quarter and Uptown, would need expensive retrofits to qualify for fortified roofs.
"Everyone thought the state was replacing their roof," he said. "When they learned they were going to have to come out of pocket...Most folks said, 'We're not doing that.'"
Aldo Russo, a franchisee of HDMK Inspection Services, jumped at the chance to get certified to inspect fortified roofs after hearing of the program.
Russo said he's bullish on fortified roofs — along with other mitigation measures like hurricane clips and storm-rated windows — as a way to reduce the impact of extreme weather events. But about 30% of the people who have selected Russo's company for their fortified evaluation have ended up dropping out of the program, mostly because of costs.
Some homes can't get the fortified designation without expensive retrofits. For instance, raised homes that don't have mortar joining the concrete or masonry blocks at the bottom of the house don't qualify. Likewise, many mobile homes can't get a fortified roof. And many older homes, especially in New Orleans, have rafters that are too far apart — the maximum is 24 inches — requiring an expensive engineering fix to make them eligible.
The lack of discounts from some insurers has also made the program less attractive, Russo said. He encourages homeowners who can't get a discount from a fortified roof to have a surveyor fill out a wind-loss mitigation certificate, which can still mean a significant premium discount.
"Our building standards are not up to where they need to be," Russo said. "This isn't a silver bullet or anything, but it's a long-term solution. We need to ultimately up our building standards to be more resilient to withstand extreme weather events."
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