Buying & selling in Florida
The wind mitigation inspection, explained question by question
A wind mitigation inspection records the construction features that affect how a house behaves in a windstorm, on one state form: the Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection Form, <strong>OIR-B1-1802</strong>. Since 1 April 2026 that form runs nine questions over six pages, it must be signed by one of six categories of qualified inspector named in statute, and its own footnote makes it valid for up to five years. What any of it does to a premium is a licensed insurance agent's question. What it does to a closing date is mine, and that is the half nobody writes about.
Updated 2026-10-11
Who to ask about money, and who to ask about the document
Stated once, so it is not repeated below. If the question is about your premium, ask a licensed Florida insurance agent. If it is about the form, the clock and the transaction, ask me. What any feature on this form does to what you pay is insurance business, licensed under Chapter 626, Florida Statutes, and I am not licensed to transact it. So there are no figures on this page and no estimates, including no vague ones. An estimate from me would be both unlicensed and wrong.
The numbers do exist, in three places, and none of them is a real estate web page. Since 1 October 2023, section 627.0629(1), Florida Statutes, has required that "each insurer subject to the requirements of this section must provide information on the insurer's website describing the hurricane mitigation discounts available to policyholders," reachable from the home page or the primary property-insurance page. Your own carrier has already sent you the rest: section 627.711(1) requires the insurer to notify you, "at the time of the issuance of the policy and at each renewal," of "the availability and the range of each premium discount, credit, other rate differential, or reduction in deductibles" on a form the Office of Insurance Regulation prescribes. That form is OIR-B1-1655, and it came in your policy packet. The schedules behind it are OIR-B1-1699 for single-family residences and OIR-B1-1700 for everything else, both adopted under Rule 69O-170.017, F.A.C.
One dated observation, because it is the sort of thing that goes unsaid. The verification form was rebuilt effective 1 April 2026. The forms carrying the credit ranges were not. Checked on 11 October 2026, the Office of Insurance Regulation still lists OIR-B1-1699 and OIR-B1-1700 as effective October 2006 and OIR-B1-1655 as revised February 2010, each marked "updates pending," and says it "continues to evaluate" all three. Citizens' own bulletin of 19 March 2026 states that the form changes "do not affect the credits available and applied at this time." So the document changed before the schedule behind it did. What that means for one specific policy is a question for the agent who writes it.
What does a wind mitigation inspection actually check?
Nine questions, and almost nobody explains them to the homeowner paying for one. The form takes them in this order, and three of the nine are new since the 01/12 revision.
1. Building code, which is where Miami-Dade is its own country. The question is which code was in force when the original permit was applied for. Statewide, the earliest answer available is the FBC 2001 and 2004, needing a permit application dated after 3/1/2002. But the form says, on its face, that for homes in the "High-Velocity Hurricane Zone ('HVHZ') (Miami-Dade or Broward counties)" there is a third answer: the South Florida Building Code of 1994, reaching back to permit applications dated after 9/1/1994. A 1995 house in Homestead or Kendall has a code answer available to it that an identical 1995 house in Orlando does not. The 04/26 form also splits FBC 2001 and 2004 from FBC 2007-and-later into separate answers, so the large 2002 to 2006 tranche of south Miami-Dade construction now answers differently from 2007-and-later stock, where it used to answer the same.
2. Region, and 3. Roof slope. Both new in 2026. Region is set by design windspeed against ASCE 7-22, and HVHZ is its own checkbox rather than a wind-speed band, so a Miami-Dade inspection ticks HVHZ and moves on. Roof slope asks whether the slope covering at least two thirds of the main roof area is 6:12 or steeper, or shallower.
4. Roof covering, and its permit date. A grid: every covering type in use, and for each one either a permit application date or an FBC or Miami-Dade product approval number, plus the year it was installed. "MDC Product Approval" means a Miami-Dade County Notice of Acceptance, and anyone can look one up free in the county's Product Control search. Read the status: File Approved is usable, while superseded, closed and expired each mean something different and only one of them is fatal.
5. Roof deck attachment, and 6. Roof to wall. Both ask for the weakest instance in the house, not the typical one, which is why a single under-nailed corner can set the answer for the whole roof. Deck attachment runs from staples and 6d nails up through 8d nails at closer spacing to a reinforced concrete deck, with spray foam added in 2026. Roof to wall is the clips-versus-wraps question people have heard of: toenails, then clips, which do not wrap over the truss, then single wraps, one strap over the truss, then double wraps, two straps, one each side. The 04/26 form attaches substantiated uplift capacities to the upper three answers, 386, 535 and 891 pounds respectively, and it adds a new answer I, "Connection(s) not installed as intended," for hardware that is present but wrong. Hip and valley jacks within five feet of a corner are excluded from the weakest-type determination.
7. Roof geometry, and the myth worth killing. Everyone calls this hip versus gable. There is no gable box on the form. Answer A is a hip roof "with no other roof shapes greater than 10% of the total roof system perimeter," answer B is a flat roof on a building of five or more units, and answer C is "Any roof that does not qualify as either (A) or (B)." A gable lands in C, and so does a hip roof that misses the 10 percent test. That test is arithmetic, written on the form in feet as total length of non-hip features over total roof perimeter, which means a homeowner can check it rather than take a view on it.
8. Sealed roof deck, and the answer that can improve on its own. Renamed and expanded in 2026, this asks whether something protects the house from water intrusion if the covering comes off; standard underlayment and hot-mopped felts expressly do not count. The 01/12 form recognized essentially one qualifying method. The 04/26 form lists four, including taped deck seams and "Double layer of felt or synthetic with no tape." A house that honestly answered "No SWR" in 2019 can honestly answer yes in 2026 with no work done to it — because the form changed, not the roof.
9. Opening protection, where south Miami-Dade loses answers on paperwork. Again the weakest instance, across "all openings in the wall and roof including windows, doors, sliding glass doors, skylights, and garage doors." The top answers require tested impact resistance, and the standards the form names include "Miami-Dade County PA 201, 202, and 203" — a county test protocol printed on the face of a statewide form. The trap is answer N, unverified systems: "protective coverings not meeting the requirements of Answer 'A,' 'B,' or 'C' or systems that appear to meet Answer 'A' or 'B' with no documentation of compliance." Accordion and panel shutters that are physically present and perfectly real land in N when nobody kept the paperwork. Worse is answer Z, damaged openings, because the form states: "Buildings with openings that need replacement do not qualify for wind mitigation rate differentials, regardless of the presence/absence of other features." One broken window can neutralize the whole form.
Underpinning all of it is a documentation rule that is far stricter than the old form's. "At least one photograph or document providing proof must accompany this form to validate each attribute marked in questions 2 through 9." The form records evidence, not opinions.
Who is allowed to sign a wind mitigation form?
Six categories, not five, and the sixth is open-ended. Section 627.711(2)(a), Florida Statutes, says an insurer "shall accept as valid" a form signed by a home inspector licensed under s. 468.8314 who has completed at least three hours of approved hurricane mitigation training and a proficiency exam; a building code inspector certified under s. 468.607; a general, building or residential contractor licensed under s. 489.111; a professional engineer licensed under s. 471.015; a professional architect licensed under s. 481.213; "or" — and this is the one most pages omit — "Any other individual or entity recognized by the insurer as possessing the necessary qualifications." Subsection (2)(b) adds that an insurer "may, but is not required to, accept a form from any other person possessing qualifications and experience acceptable to the insurer."
Personal inspection is the rule, with exactly two exceptions. The signer "must inspect the structures referenced by the form personally, not through employees or other persons." Only licensees under s. 471.015 or s. 489.111 — engineers and contractors — may send someone, and only "a direct employee, who is not an independent contractor." A home inspector, a building code inspector and an architect may not delegate at all, and the insurer may demand that employee's qualifications before accepting the form.
Verifying the license is a two-stop job, which I have not seen written down anywhere. Five of the six categories sit at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation's licensee search. Professional engineers do not: they are regulated through the Florida Board of Professional Engineers and verify at fbpe.org. If a form arrives signed "P.E." and the name is not at DBPR, that is not a red flag, it is the wrong search.
Two more things on the certification pages. The form has a homeowner signature line, which hardly anyone mentions: the owner certifies that the inspection happened and "that proof of identification was provided to me or my Authorized Representative." And the integrity provisions are real. Section 627.711(8) makes it a first-degree misdemeanor to knowingly provide or utter a false or fraudulent mitigation verification form with intent to obtain a discount, and under 627.711(5) engineers and contractors are "directly liable for the acts of employees" as if they had performed the inspection themselves. Nobody should be guessing on this form, and a good inspector will decline to.
How long is a wind mitigation inspection good for?
Up to five years — and the five years is not in the statute, which is worth knowing before someone tells you Florida law says so. Section 627.711(2)(a) contains no number at all; it only directs the Financial Services Commission to "provide guidance as to the length of time the inspection results are valid." The number lives in the footnote printed on all six pages of the form adopted by Rule 69O-170.0155, F.A.C.: "This verification form is valid for up to five (5) years provided no material changes have been made to the structure or inaccuracies found on the form."
Read the conditions. It is up to five years, and it ends early two ways: a material change to the structure, or inaccuracies found on the form. A re-roof is a material change. So is replacing the windows, in the direction you would want.
Then the date arithmetic that actually decides whether a report in a seller's file is worth anything. Citizens' bulletin of 19 March 2026 says it will keep accepting the previous revision of the form, OIR-B1-1802 (Rev. 01/12), "if there have been no structural changes and it was completed within five years prior to April 1, 2026," and warns that performance violations may issue for submitting an older one. Work that through: an 01/12 form dated before 2 April 2021 is now a dead document at Citizens. One dated inside that window still works there until it reaches its own five-year mark. And any inspection performed on or after 1 April 2026 has to be on the 04/26 revision. That is Citizens' rule, dated, and it does not automatically describe any other carrier — but it does mean a wind mitigation report dated 2018 or 2019 sitting in a listing file is paperwork, not an asset.
Why a missing form moves your closing date
This is the part that is squarely a licensee's work, and the part competing pages skip because they treat the form as a money document rather than a deadline document. A buyer, a seller and a lender all end up needing it. No lender closes without bound coverage, and a carrier that will not bind without a current wind mitigation form has, in practice, stopped the closing.
Now read what the contract does about that, because it is less than people assume. The FloridaRealtors/FloridaBar AS IS Residential Contract treats the "issuance of hazard, wind, flood or homeowners' insurance" as a service essential to closing in paragraph 5(b) — but it extends the clock only through STANDARD G, which covers Force Majeure: "hurricanes, floods, extreme weather, earthquakes, fires, or other acts of God, unusual transportation delays, wars, insurrections, civil unrest, or acts of terrorism, governmental actions and mandates, government shut downs, epidemics, or pandemics." An expired wind mitigation form is none of those. A Z answer on a damaged window is none of those. There is no insurance contingency in the AS IS contract. What the buyer actually has is paragraph 12(a), the inspection period: "Buyer shall have ______ (if left blank, then 15) days after Effective Date." Fifteen days if nobody fills in the blank. That is the entire protection, which is why the insurance conversation belongs in week one and not week four. A contract question beyond the mechanics belongs with a Florida real estate attorney.
Two practical notes that cost nothing. First, clear the attic hatch before the inspector arrives — three of the nine answers come from up there, and an occupied house with storage piled under the access panel generates a form full of blanks. Second, if the property is a condominium unit, the 1802 is probably the wrong form entirely: Citizens uses it for single-family homes, one-to-four-unit dwellings and residential buildings of one to three stories, and directs personal residential condominium unit owners and four-or-more-story residential buildings to its MIT-BT II and III instead. That is one reason this page is about houses; a condominium's inspection paperwork runs on an entirely separate track, covered in the milestone inspection and SIRS guide.
The roof permit is already half of this form
Here is the connection almost nobody makes. In Florida a compliant re-roof is legally required to install two of the things the form asks about, which means the permit file for the work already contains the evidence.
Section 553.844(3)(a), Florida Statutes, requires that for site-built single-family residential structures, "A roof replacement must incorporate the techniques specified in subparagraphs (2)(b)2. and 4." Those two are "Secondary water barriers for roofs" and "Strengthening or correcting roof-decking attachments and fasteners during reroofing." Question 8 and question 5, in other words. Roof-to-wall connections come in separately under (3)(b) for buildings in the wind-borne debris region above a value threshold stated in the statute as an insured value of $300,000 or more, or failing documentation of insured value, a "just valuation for the structure for purposes of ad valorem taxation" of $300,000 or more — a statutory tax-roll term, and a figure that has not moved since the 2022 amendment while south Miami-Dade prices have. The Florida Building Commission's rule reaches site-built single-family detached houses, and Miami-Dade's own exemption list confirms the edges: townhouses, duplexes, apartment buildings, condominiums and commercial buildings sit outside it. Which is a concrete reason a Cutler Bay townhouse and the detached house next door can carry different question 8 answers.
In Miami-Dade the law becomes a specific piece of paper. The county's Affidavit of Compliance with Roof Decking Attachment and Secondary Water Barrier is completed by the roofing permit holder, notarized, and handed to the roofing inspector at the first inspection; its text certifies the work was done "in accordance with Florida Building Code, Existing Volume Section 706.7.1.1 or 706.7.1.2 and a secondary water barrier has been provided in accordance with Florida Building Code, Existing Volume Section 706.7.2." There is a separate affidavit for roof-to-wall connections, and the county states that "Only a licensed general, building, or residential contractor shall install the roof to wall connections retrofits" — a different license class from the roofer. So one county record feeds questions 4, 5 and 8: the permit proves the date, the affidavit proves the deck and the barrier, and the product approval number proves the covering. Pull the permit before you order anything.
Roof age itself is a separate question with its own consequences for a buyer's financing, and it has its own page: roof age and Florida insurance.
Common questions
What is a wind mitigation inspection?
It is an inspection that records the construction features of a house that bear on windstorm performance, documented on a single state form: the Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection Form, OIR-B1-1802, adopted by Rule 69O-170.0155, F.A.C. Since 1 April 2026 the form asks nine questions over six pages: the building code in force at the original permit application, the region by design windspeed, roof slope, roof covering and its permit date or product approval number, roof deck attachment, roof-to-wall attachment, roof geometry, sealed roof deck or secondary water resistance, and opening protection. Questions 5, 6 and 9 all ask for the weakest instance in the house rather than the typical one. At least one photograph or document must accompany the form for every attribute marked in questions 2 through 9. What the recorded features do to a premium is a question for a licensed Florida insurance agent, not for a real estate licensee.
How long is a wind mitigation inspection valid in Florida?
Up to five years, and the source matters because it is widely misattributed. Section 627.711(2)(a), Florida Statutes, states no period at all; it directs the Financial Services Commission to "provide guidance as to the length of time the inspection results are valid." The five years appears in the footnote printed on every page of the adopted form: "This verification form is valid for up to five (5) years provided no material changes have been made to the structure or inaccuracies found on the form." So it is an outside limit, not a guarantee, and it ends early if the structure materially changes or if inaccuracies are found. Separately, Citizens' bulletin of 19 March 2026 says it will keep accepting the previous 01/12 revision only where there have been no structural changes and the inspection was completed within five years prior to 1 April 2026, which means an 01/12 form dated before 2 April 2021 no longer works there. Other carriers set their own rules.
Who can perform a wind mitigation inspection in Florida?
Section 627.711(2)(a), Florida Statutes, lists six categories of authorized mitigation inspector whose signed form an insurer "shall accept as valid": a home inspector licensed under s. 468.8314 who has completed at least three hours of approved hurricane mitigation training and a proficiency exam; a building code inspector certified under s. 468.607; a general, building or residential contractor licensed under s. 489.111; a professional engineer licensed under s. 471.015; a professional architect licensed under s. 481.213; or any other individual or entity the insurer recognizes as possessing the necessary qualifications. That sixth category is open-ended, and subsection (2)(b) lets an insurer accept a form from anyone whose qualifications it finds acceptable. The signer must inspect personally, "not through employees or other persons" — except that engineers and contractors may authorize a direct employee who is not an independent contractor. Home inspectors, building code inspectors and architects may not delegate. Five of the six verify at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation; professional engineers verify at the Florida Board of Professional Engineers instead.
Is a hip roof better than a gable on the wind mitigation form?
The form does not ask the question that way, and there is no gable box on it. Question 7 offers three answers: A, a hip roof "with no other roof shapes greater than 10% of the total roof system perimeter"; B, a flat roof on a building with five or more units where at least 90 percent of the main roof area is shallower than 2:12; and C, "Any roof that does not qualify as either (A) or (B) above." A gable roof is a C. So is a hip roof that fails the 10 percent perimeter test. That test is arithmetic and the inspector writes both numbers on the form in feet, total length of non-hip features over total roof system perimeter, so it is checkable rather than a matter of judgment. Roofs of porches or carports attached only to the fascia or a wall over unenclosed space are excluded from the measurement.
Can my wind mitigation answers improve without doing any work?
On one question, yes, and it is a genuine consequence of the 2026 form revision. Question 8 covers the sealed roof deck, also called secondary water resistance. The 01/12 revision recognized essentially one qualifying method, a self-adhering polymer modified-bitumen underlayment applied directly to the sheathing or a foam adhesive barrier. The 04/26 revision lists four, adding taped roof deck seams, a "Double layer of felt or synthetic with no tape," and spray foam along the rafter-deck intersections and panel joints. A house with a double layer of felt under its covering would have answered "No SWR" on the old form and can answer yes on the new one with nothing done to the roof. Standard underlayment and hot-mopped felts still do not qualify. Whether a re-inspection makes sense for a particular policy is a conversation for your insurance agent.
Do I need a wind mitigation inspection to sell my house?
Nothing requires one to list or to close. What happens in practice is that the buyer's carrier wants it before binding coverage, no lender closes without bound coverage, and the AS IS contract gives a buyer no insurance contingency — paragraph 5(b) treats the issuance of wind insurance as a service essential to closing, but the clock only extends for a Force Majeure event under STANDARD G, and an expired form is not a hurricane. The buyer's real protection is the paragraph 12(a) inspection period, 15 days if the blank is left empty. That is why a current form, with its photographs and the attic actually accessible, belongs in the listing file in week one. If the form in your file predates 1 April 2021, treat it as needing replacement. Contract questions beyond these mechanics belong with a Florida real estate attorney, and premium questions with a licensed insurance agent.
Send me the address and I will tell you what the file is missing
Anywhere in Miami-Dade — Homestead, Florida City, Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, the Kendall corridor, Country Walk, the Redland or the wider county — send me the address and I will pull what the public record shows: the roof permit and its date, whether the permit file should contain the decking and secondary water barrier affidavit, the product approval number for the covering, and whether the wind mitigation form in the file is current or has aged out. Then I will tell you plainly which questions to put to a licensed insurance agent, because that part is their work and not mine. Zachary Tranten, P.A., REALTOR(R) - Keys Gate Realty, 10 NE 3rd Street, Florida City, FL 33034. Call or text (305) 905-9938.
Related
This page describes a document and its role in a transaction, which is a real estate licensee's work. It is not insurance advice and contains no premium figures, discount amounts or savings estimates by design: insurance is licensed activity under Chapter 626, Florida Statutes, and anything about what a feature is worth on a policy must go to a licensed Florida insurance agent or to the carrier. It is not legal advice; contract and title questions belong with a Florida real estate attorney. Form OIR-B1-1802 (Rev. 04/26) was read in full from the adopted version published by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation on 11 October 2026, and the previous revision (Rev. 01/12) was read alongside it for comparison; every quotation from the form, including the nine question stems, the five-year footnote, the documentation rule and the opening protection language, is taken from those documents rather than from any summary. The form is incorporated by Rule 69O-170.0155, F.A.C., whose history note records the amendment as 4-1-26; Florida's Department of Financial Services states the new form must be used for all inspections as of 1 April 2026. Sections 627.711, 627.0629 and 553.844, Florida Statutes, were read verbatim from Online Sunshine on 11 October 2026. Note that the form's own fraud warning box cites "Section 627.711(7)" for the first-degree misdemeanor, while in the current statute that provision is 627.711(8); this page cites the statute. Section 627.711 was last amended by s. 18, ch. 2025-4, which changed only an agency name, so the inspector list and the delegation rule have been substantively unchanged since 2016 even though the form changed in 2026. Section 553.844 was last amended in 2022 and its dollar thresholds are statutory, not indexed, so they move only by act of the Legislature. The Citizens Property Insurance Corporation material is from its bulletin dated 19 March 2026 and its own consumer pages; Citizens is a state-created entity but its bulletins are an insurer's guidance, not a rule, and nothing in them should be read as describing any other carrier. The Miami-Dade affidavit text is quoted from the county's live form; the county's hurricane mitigation page was last edited 25 January 2017, so confirm current forms in the county's permit library rather than relying on that page. Limits worth stating plainly. The full text of Florida Building Code, Existing Building, Section 706.7 sits behind a paywall and could not be read directly, so this page cites section 553.844 and the county affidavit instead of quoting the code. The boundary of the "wind-borne debris region" was not verified against a primary map; what is verified, on the face of the form, is that the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone is Miami-Dade and Broward. No cost figure for an inspection appears in any primary source found, so none is given. The AS IS contract quotations are cited by paragraph number, from the revision posted by Florida Realtors; the form is revised periodically and paragraph numbering is more durable than wording, so confirm the operative version before relying on exact text. Rulemaking to replace OIR-B1-1802 with a new form OIR-B1-600 was withdrawn on 2 September 2026 as recorded in the Florida Administrative Register, which is the position as of this page's date; the register moves and the Office may re-notice at any time. The checklist is a reading aid for a document in your file, not an inspection, not a determination of eligibility for anything, and not a substitute for the qualified inspector that section 627.711(2) requires. Equal Housing Opportunity.