Manufacturers Hammer IBHS Over 15-Year Roof Age Limit for Fortified Designation

Asphalt-roofing manufacturers have come out swinging against a new Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety standard that limits the coveted “Fortified” designation to roofs younger than 15 years. The manufacturers’ response could lend new fuel to the debate over whether insurers can or should refuse to write some aging roof systems.

The IBHS’ “sweeping conclusions are fundamentally compromised by non-standard testing protocols, unrepresentative grab-sampling, and incomplete probabilistic modeling,” the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association said in recent news release. “By shifting testing procedures mid-project and omitting positive performance outcomes along with enhanced manufacturer installation guidelines, the study fails to reflect real-world roof system durability.”

The IBHS report and a technical bulletin released in September looked at IBHS’ 10-year-long study of shingles at its roof farms around the country, as well as roof examinations after three windstorm events in recent years.

The pushback over the reports comes as the Fortified designation has become the gold standard for homes built to resist high winds, with more states adopting the standard through grant-funded wind-mitigation programs or similar building codes. The IBHS, funded by the property/casualty insurance industry, reported in May that more than 100,000 structures have been designated as Fortified, with Alabama leading the way with more than half of the Fortified homes in the country. That’s double the number from 2023.

The Institute’s Sept. 29 Fortified bulletin notes that homes with roofs more than 15 years old cannot continue to win the Fortified roof designation, a certification that can lead to significant premium discounts from property insurers. The rule takes effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Institute officials could not be reached for comment, but the IBHS bulletin emphasized that the requirement applies only to Fortified home re-certification. “It does not establish asphalt shingle service life, determine whether an individual roof is fit for continued use or requires roof replacement at a particular age for any purpose other than FORTIFIED eligibility,” the bulletin reads.

Still, roofing companies worry that the IBHS reports paint too broad a brush stroke and could prompt insurers to adopt similar restrictions on any type of shingle roof, just as several Florida-based carriers did in recent years. Some of those insurers in the early 2000s—during the height of the claims litigation and assignment-of-benefits crisis in Florida—began dropping coverage for Florida homes with roofs that were older than 10 years, despite roof manufacturers’ warranties that the shingles were built to last as much as 30 years in some cases.

In 2022, Florida lawmakers responded to homeowner and roofing company complaints and enacted a law that bars insurers from non-renewing HO policies for homes with roofs less than 15 years old, solely because of the age of the roof. The law requires continuation of coverage if an inspection finds that the roof has at least five years of useful life remaining.

Only a handful of other states, including Texas and Virginia, have adopted similar governance on insurers’ renewals based solely on roof age, according to news reports and the Texas Department of Insurance.

The Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association (ARMA) is now urging insurance carriers to refrain from using the new Fortified bulletin to implement broad underwriting restrictions. The association also wants insurers to demand consensus-based engineering standards, and to “account for modern shingle technologies and installation quality rather than attributing wind vulnerability strictly to material age.”

One longtime Florida roofing contractor agreed, noting that roof shingles vary widely in quality and durability, and proper installation is a key factor in how roof systems hold up to wind, hail and years of wear and tear.

“This study is unfortunate. A lot of folks in the insurance industry don’t understand that shingles are not all the same,” said contractor Mike Silvers, who is director of technical services for the Florida Roofing and Sheetmetal Association.

Some low-cost, three-tab asphalt shingles will not last nearly as long as “dimensional” or “architectural” systems that include multiple layers of materials, he said. Silvers noted that his own home in Orlando, Florida, has top-of-the line shingles that are now 32 years old and are still weathering well. His house lost only a few cosmetic shingles in Hurricane Milton in 2024, he said.

If carriers adopt the IBHS’ 15-year rule to include more homes, they will be undercutting shingle makers’ and roofers’ own knowledge and experience, and will shift the cost to homeowners and, he argued.

“They’d be saying to homeowners: ‘We want you to spend your money to reduce our claims,'” Silvers said.

The ultimate test of a roof, he added, is whether it leaks after a rain event. “If there’s water inside, then it’s a failure. If not, it’s a success.”

Even without widespread adoption of a roof-age limit, and despite Florida’s statute barring those types of nonrenewals, many carriers continue to take roof age into consideration when calculating homeowner premiums.

Security First Insurance, one of the largest property insurers in Florida, for example, does not offer premium discounts for Fortified homes, said Melissa Burt DeVriese, president of the Ormond Beach-based carrier. (The Fortified standards are very similar to the Florida Building Code on roof coverings, roof decking and other wind-resistant construction requirements, she and Silvers pointed out.)

But the insurer does rate structures based on roof factors.

“We price on the age and condition of the roof,” DeVriese said. “It is the single-largest rate factor.”

That’s partly because, in Florida and other parts of the Deep South where sizzling heat and hurricane winds often are more frequent and intense than in other regions, asphalt shingles don’t seem to last as long as manufacturers claim. The IBHS report in September acknowledged that. It said that research has shown that some brands of shingles cannot perform across climate zones and latitudes and carry an additional level of risk.

Florida insurance agents have said that even without a hard-and-fast age limit rule, coverage for older roofs is more difficult to find, even if the shingles are considered to have a 30-year or longer life span.

Florida’s insurance commissioner, Mike Yaworsky, in 2024 said as much, suggesting that it’s time to phase out asphalt shingles in Florida. “Shingles are supposed to last 30 years. But they don’t. Not in Florida,” Yaworsky said. “It’s time to write asphalt shingles out of the plot in Florida.”

Those comments, like the IBHS’s recent Fortified bulletin, sparked blowback from shingle manufacturers. Read more here.

Top photo: One of IBHS’ roof-aging farms. (IBHS)