Full Episode 12-6-2025: Fortified Roofs and You

·1 hr 11 min·2 clips

Remy Richard says a fortified roof seals the deck, renails the entire deck, and seals all the edges.

1. The Home Improvement Show's December 6, 2025 episode, "Fortified Roofs and You," spends two hours on the Fortify roof program and its link to Louisiana insurance availability and premiums. 2. Host Paul is joined by Collette Biedenkopf of TWFG, his insurance contact of seven or eight years, and by Remy Richard and Stash Kozlowski, licensed evaluators and partners at Fortified Gulf Coast. 3. Paul describes Fortify as a "code plus" program that goes above Louisiana's minimum building code, and he frames it as one factor in drawing insurers and reinsurers into the Louisiana market. 4. Richard says the main upgrades are a fully sealed roof deck, a renailed deck, and sealed edges, and that the program's documentation of timestamped, geolocated photos is what separates it from a regular code roof. 5. Biedenkopf says discounts are hard to predict because insurers apply them inconsistently, and she attributes some premium increases to higher replacement value and new replacement-cost coverage on roofs that previously carried actual cash value settlements. 6. Kozlowski advises homeowners to choose a Louisiana-based evaluator and roofer, check fortifiedhome.org and the Louisiana Department of Insurance listings, and confirm they hold the certificate, which must be renewed every five years and is the only basis for a discount. 7. The panel notes that no one clearly tracks the five-year renewal on the insurance side, so Richard says IBHS emails reminders with about a 45-day grace period, and Paul suggests a calendar reminder at four and a half years. 8. Richard says the IBHS Sally report covered about 17,000 fortified roofs in Alabama, found very few claims, and that the main claims were for fallen trees, which a fortified roof will not stop. 9. Richard compares about 625,000 coastal Alabama homes with about 2.5 million in coastal Louisiana, with roughly 10 percent versus 0.4 percent fortified, and says Alabama's roof discount benchmark is about 35 percent, with roughly 40 percent across all designations. 10. Suited to Louisiana homeowners weighing a fortified roof and insurance savings.

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