Impact windows and your insurance — without the inflated promises.

The legal basis — credits are required, amounts are filed

Section 627.0629 of the Florida Statutes requires residential property insurers to include actuarially reasonable credits and other rate differentials for construction features that reduce windstorm losses — opening protection among them. Three practical consequences:

• The credit is not a favor. It exists because the law requires rate filings to include it.
• The amount is not universal. It comes from each insurer’s filed rates and applies to the hurricane-wind portion of your premium — which the statute also requires to be stated separately. Different carrier, different result.
• You can look before you buy. Insurers are required to make information about available hurricane mitigation credits accessible on their websites.

That is why this page contains no percentage: any specific number would be a guess about someone else’s filed rates. The pages that promise one anyway are telling you something about themselves.

The wind mitigation inspection

The bridge between your construction features and your premium is a wind mitigation inspection, documented on Florida’s uniform form — OIR-B1-1802. A credentialed inspector documents the features that reduce wind losses (roof covering, roof-to-wall attachment, roof deck, secondary water resistance, opening protection, and more), with photographs backing the answers.

• Who can sign it: the OIR-B1-1802 form itself names the qualified inspectors — home inspectors with hurricane-mitigation training, building code inspectors, general/building/residential contractors, professional engineers and architects. The list comes from the form, not from s. 627.0629. Insurers verify credentials before applying a credit, and the form carries the inspector’s signed attestation.
• How long it lasts: the form itself states it is valid for up to five years, provided nothing material changes on the structure.
• The 2026 revision: a revised form applies to inspections performed on or after April 1, 2026, with expanded attributes; forms completed earlier remain usable within their five-year window. If your inspection is older than your window project, a new one is how the upgrade reaches your policy.

Opening protection: the weakest opening rules them all

The form’s opening-protection question classifies the entire house by the weakest form of protection across all glazed openings — windows, glass doors, garage doors, skylights, glass block. The top classification requires protection verified against the large-missile standards (the same 9-pound-lumber test family described in our guide on how impact windows work), and sub-levels grade how the non-glazed openings, like garage doors, are handled.

Three classifications quietly ruin credits:

• “Looks protected, no documentation” — protection that looks impact-rated but has no verifiable evidence classifies as unverified. Keep your product approvals and permit records; they are what turns glass into a credit.
• One unprotected opening — a single glazed opening with no qualifying protection drops the whole house’s classification. The garage door and the forgotten bathroom window are the classic culprits.
• A damaged opening — under the 2026 revision, a damaged or compromised opening disqualifies the opening-protection credit regardless of how good everything else is, until it is fixed and re-documented.

How the credit actually reaches your bill

1. Finish the project — with permits and final inspection, not just installation.
2. Have the wind mitigation inspection performed by a qualified professional, with photos and your product-approval documentation on hand.
3. Submit the completed form to your agent or insurer.
4. The credits apply to the wind portion of the premium, typically at issuance or renewal — confirm the timing with your agent and keep a copy of the form.

Also worth knowing: the state’s My Safe Florida Home program has offered wind mitigation inspections at no cost to eligible homeowners, along with grant support for hardening projects, subject to funding and eligibility rules on the official site. We walk through the inspection-then-grant sequence in our guide to the program.

Questions we actually get