New changes to Wind Mitigation Inspection rules in Florida.

Nick,

Thanks for your hard work on the Wind Mitigation / NACHI approval. Do you have any timeline as to when to expect NACHI inspectors to be certified for Wind Mits?

Nick and Greg,

Thanks for the great information.

NACHI rules!

It appears that The Office of Insurance Regulation left wide open and entirely up to the insurance companies who can perform this inspection. I agree the price for these things will soon be $50 or less.

When does this new form take effect?

I had a realestate agent tell, not quote me a price of $75.
I guess next they will be telling my customers how much for all inspections.

I am happy to see the state has addressed the issue of the 7/16" being a valid thickness for roof sheathing. Especially since it never (since way back) has been acceptable for a 24" span. Approved by plan by the examiner over and over again regardless of violation of the minimum standards set by code back to SBCCI 1997. This state is a runaway train and we are on the tracks.

50$ gets you the tail-light warranty from some fly-by-night jack-off, who won’t be around in a couple of weeks or months when the underwriter finds a problem or the agent has a question. Good agents realize that customer service, dependability, accurate reporting, and rapid response to inspection requests are worth the necessary fees to keep good companies in business. Insurance inspectors have been bending over to adjust to the ever changing rules and regulations. The ones who have been successful do not charge $50, but typically $150, or $90,roof only. We do charge $50 to re-inspect homes we did in the past for the same agents who send new business.

Oh yeah, did anybody notice that the new form still has YOU certifying that EVERY strap or clip is properly nailed. The form still does not address the straps which were not installed in a proper manner with repect to the location (should be within an eighth of an inch) so if they are a foot off or so and nailed three times I guess wraps are deemed to be as good as straps. Morons.

Joe Burkeson writes:

:cool:

Was this finalized on the 18th?

$50 or $75 bucks hell. I just lost a bid because some jack*** is doing a 3000 square foot home for $275.00 including termite and wind mitigation. Lets just give them away for free now.

You ain’t seen nothing yet, insurance inspections & licensing will drive standardization into our profession with that comes lower prices, much lower prices, count on it.

Greg have you seen the final 1802 without all the strike outs? if so how about a link? When can we start using the new form?

bump

No I have not seen it. I have no idea when it will be released.

I especially like #2 now. On every inspection the homeowner will need to provide the inspector with either the permit application date or the date of installation AND the FBC approval # for the product. There is no room for expertise or judgement or experience built into this form. Without these required fields of information the answer will have to be C. NO DISCOUNT exactly who does OIR work for.
Look how they have butchered #10. Instead of simply stating wether the structure meets the code for the location and wind zone they have broken it into a dozen stupid sections. I don’t even have a clue why 4.5lb missiles are broken out as another large missile catagory. Must be something they decided NOT to tell us about or just invented. Why does 10A talk about garage doors but 10B doesn’t? Are we to assume something?
I’ll assume this, the OIR is listening to the wrong people and acting on bad advise. I really don’t see any profit potential in this type of inspection in the near future unless something changes for the better.

I can tell you one of the BIGGEST clowns giving everything away is a Hialeah company Florida Building Engineering and Inspections, there web-site makes you think they’ve been around for decades when they actually incorporated December 2006, they also claim to have performed (get this) 1,000,000 inspections (false advertising) they are nothing but X$#@&^%$ if you know what I mean.

I ran into a Mitigation done by them on a 1947 frame home with asbestos siding–they gave it 100% re-enforced masonry.

By-the-way nothing has been finalized with the 1802 Mit form, nothing happened on the 18th of August.

Nick,

I am part of a workgroup made up of key stakeholders that are making recommendations to the Office of Insurance Regulation. Members need to be aware of s.627.711(3)(b) that makes filing a false or fraudulent form a misdemeanor of the third degree. There was a move by industry attorneys, during the public hearing on the form, to expand this to include language dealing with an application for insurance, this would make it a felony of the third degree with a much higher fine.

We do not know when the new form will go into effect, it is still being reviewed by OIR legal. As to the signature block there is a change added to allow insurers to accept inspection from other “approved entities” or individuals that do not meet the current licensing requirements. This does mean NACHI will need to go directly to insurers to seek approval for members to sign the forms if they are currently unlicensed.

I have not reviewed your mitigation course yet but I would be glad to assist members in addressing common problems and mistakes made using the currents form. Unfortunately the MSFH Training program did not address teh OIR form and inspectors who received only this training could be making mistakes when filling out the OIR form.

There are 2 documents that are available to anyone interested in learning more about these issues. The new 2008 Loss Relativities Study is out and while it is not incorporated into the new form yet, it probably will be worked in over the next year or so. the link is: http://www.floir.com/pdf/ARALossMitigationStudy.pdf

Another document inspectors need to read is the Florida Assoc of Independent Agents White Paper on Mitigation Fraud and Abuse. This is a fairly well written article outlining the time line and issues creating the mitigation discounts and problems in todays industry driving the requirement for all inspectors to be licensed with stiffer penalties for those making mistakes due to lack of training or industry knowledge. The link is: http://www.faia.com/core/contentmanager/uploads/Legislative%20Department/PDFs/Mitigation%20White%20Paper%20August%202009.pdf

We have recommended that OIR consider an instruction sheet or training manual to accompany the new form to insure inspectors are all working with the same interpretations and understanding of qualifying mitigation features, not sure they will do that but there are several of us that work as technical advisors that are willing to do the work on this.

Sincerely,

Darius H Grimes CSI, CDT, CWMS
President- Disaster-Smart Consulting Inc
CRC 1327100
InterNACHI Member

That news is great! Will InterNACHI be sending out a general email once the form gets approved (assuming it does) by OIR?