Episode 3: Challenges of Meeting New Insurance Standards

Episode 3 of the Florida Insurance Survival Series  

Rick Kooyman discusses the impact of Florida building codes on condo owners, particularly regarding impact-rated products. He explains that products must pass large missile tests to meet the code, which increases costs. Discounts for meeting these standards can range from 10% to 68%. He also details the stringent requirements for roofing, including nail specifications, underlayment materials, and roof shape. Kooyman highlights the challenges of maintaining and upgrading older structures to meet these standards, noting the high costs and the need for comprehensive inspections. He emphasizes the importance of understanding insurance policies and the potential for significant assessments in condo communities.

Transcript

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The next thing on the discount side of stuff in the windmill world, this is kind of stuff that matters to the condo owners. Now, because some of the units you can, you know, update yourself. You can change your doors and windows. Some buildings, they have to do the whole one because they want to maintain the look, you know, but that's a discount now impact rated products, you know. So since they implemented the Florida building code, now they had to make products that were approved and tested, Florida approved, impact tested products. And they had small missile and large missile, which was a four pound ball and an eight pound two by four. And now they just go with the large missile rating. There used to be a discount for the small missile they they ask, but they still, they won't give you a discount. So doesn't matter. And now it's literally they shoot a two by four at 32, miles an hour at everything, and they see if it takes it right. So they don't just test the window, they test the frame and they test the mounting. So the thing gets shot three times, and then it gets approved, and now it costs three times as much, right? So and again, as we update and we change our stuff out, they want you to get to that new building code. So every time you want to change like, for like, it's like for impact rated like, yeah. Or you have to put a shutter over it, which is the cheaper option, right? So you can buy the cheaper window, but you have to have impact rated protection on it. If you change it, they want it corrected, right? So the older these structures here generally don't have the impact rated stuff in them, and it goes to every penetration. Is what it's called. So garage door matters. Oftentimes, the garage door, again, this giant house, it's got 50 windows in it. They're all impact rated. The garage door's got the top panel with the plastic windows in it, not impact rated, sorry, no discount. Yeah, it's 100% it's everything or nothing. So, you know, it gets expensive, right? And oftentimes all the windows get changed, but the out swing steel panel door, that's an entry door is original to construction. Well, there was no test when it was made, so it couldn't possibly be impact rated, even though it's a steel door, right? It doesn't have the label. It didn't get tested. It's not going to get the discount, right? So you get, you get like in here, it says, On this last panel, there's an explanation of what some of the discounts amount to, and they're not straightforward. So I had one of my insurance buddies give me a bunch of different versions of policies from different underwriters, and I just compared them. And this is just how I wrote it down, just to say, you know, I got four, and this is what the four came back at on these seven questions, right? So the first one, the FBC thing, I think it was 10% discount. No, actually, that one is the most. That one would go up to 68% for some underwriters, right? So that was a huge discount to get if you were built to the residential Florida residential code, not the national residential code. And then the impact rated stuff is another discount. It's another, you know, 20, 30% depending on who you do. And then How old's the roof? Well, okay, one, what was the permit application date? And then they want to know what kind of product is it, what type of roof covering is it? And then they want to know a bunch of stuff about what's going on in the attic, about the roof. So they want to know how many nails are in the roof deck, holding the decking to the truss. Right? That used to be that you could put they wanted. The standard code was six inch spacing around the perimeter and 12 inches in the field. Now they want six inches everywhere. And they used to put in Staples, you know, here the guys with the stable gun putting the deck down. Now, Staples not accepted. That was one of the big things that just pulled apart really easily. So they wanted that majorly corrected. So that was one of the big things the insurance industry said, Hey, anybody that gets a new roof, every roof has to get re nailed. Now the county doesn't inspect it, because when they tear the old roof off, they got to get it covered back up before the afternoon rain. Well, ain't nobody going to get there to inspect it in time. So the roofer signs an affidavit that said, Yes, we re nailed it. Well then they want that on that form, and they send me into the attic with a metal detector to find the damn nails. I take a picture. There you go. So there you go. That's the next question. Is that next thing after staples was the six penny nail, and it was just a little smaller, and now they want an eight penny nail, right? And then, typically it should be a ring shank nail. And they do make a hell of a difference between pulling out a six penny nail and pulling out a ring shank nail, or, like trying to compare a screw to a nail, there are what we call shiners, and those are misses where the guy on the roof deck is looking at the truss line, and he tipped the gun, and it shot on an angle, and it came off the side of the truss, or it just so I'm looking for missed shots. Well, that gets ugly too, because a lot of times they missed all of them. You look and I got to take a picture, and now it's just nails. It's just like a field of nails shining. Guess what? That sucks, because even though the roofer says, well, they went and re nailed it again, the insurance industry just looks at that damn picture and goes, Oh, hell no. Not only do I not believe you, but you probably just perforated the crap out of the truss cord, and there's too many nails in it. Let's just say that, right, so that the sheets been penetrated so many times, it's no longer got the resistance and that nail head, and they're just like, Yeah, whatever. Put a new deck on it now. Way to go, right? And that's really expensive, yeah, because a roof, a re roof, a roofer does the roof covering the underlayment and the product that goes on top of the underlayment. And down here in Florida, a tile roof is considered a decorative covering, right? The underlayment is your roof, as far as the insurance industry goes. So whether you put, you know, metal shingle, tile, they're all considered decorative, and that's why, when the roofer says it's a 60 year metal roof, I go, it's a 20 year underlayment. And the insurance industry keeps asking these questions, and they won't take Boo from anybody, right? So roof length that the nail staple, nail length to the big nail. So now that's the next district, the next discount, like 10% and then how's that truss held onto that wall up here at the corner, right? So when the storms come and you see the roofs flying away, that's what they don't want to see. So they want to know, how is that truss attached to that wall plate? That's a big one. Yeah, originally it was toenailed Even better, which is where you cross, nailed on an angle through the wood and into the top plate. What's that? Yeah, and again, I've been in construction my whole life, so I know from practice, when you shot the nail, it chipped the edge of the cord and it just broke the damn thing. So now it's like this little sliver of wood sitting there with all these nails stuck in it. It's so good. So now it's a well, how's the roof attached? You know, they want, they want strapping. There's a bunch of different ways it can be strap attached. One of the newer ways they have is a big, long screw, which is a problem for me, because I can never see it. It once it's put in, it's gone, because it literally goes in from under here, up through the bottom plate, into the truss cord, and it's put in, it's, you know, this long, and it's put in straight, generally, it doesn't miss, because then you really ruin stuff, and you can't ever tell. So when I go in there, I'm like, I don't know. There's no attachment. Well, it's only on new products right now. So fortunately, we haven't gone down the road of trying to figure out how we're going to identify these new attachment systems that they're coming up with. When they keep asking us to fill out these forms and show them a photo to see the damn strap, and they don't want to just see the strap. It has to have no gaps. They don't want it to be able to if you could pick up the truss and wiggle it around, because the strap is loose, no good. It's got to have three nails in it, and the three nails got to be in the right locations. Otherwise, no discount. And right? What is the underlayment product? Is another discount question, right? Because they want to know, to them, that's the most important thing. When the roof covering gets blowed off, what's under it that we're putting our money on? You used to be able to use tons. Paper, you know, lightweight tar paper, or two layers of tar paper. And this goes back to Irma, one of the big roofing problems, because the roofs that were mainly damaged by Irma that were 20 years old, ish, you know, they were right around 2000 year age. When those houses were built, those roofs were assembled what they called a mortar Patty system, where they mixed up roof cement, and they took a big blob of it on top of the tar paper, and they set the tile in that that mortar well over time, hot, cold, hot, cold, all that mortar detached from the roof tiles. And there were hella roofs where I could go up, and all the tiles were just sitting there. Nobody had ever checked or thought about it, you know, because it had been years since they'd have a wind storm that came and took them all away. And that was one of the things that caused the insurance uproar. Because now, even if your roof only had a little bit of damage, and they couldn't get the tile, or it was a mortar Patty system. They had to replace those roofs, and again, they paid the whole damn thing, right? And you mean, like a shingle, not better, more affordable. They're better and more No, they're more affordable. They're more affordable, right? But I don't think asphalt shingles would do what you just they do. Blow off. Yeah, they do. They will. They will. Some of them. Some of them get really well attached to each other from the tar tape sets in them, and they're hard as hell to get apart. Most of them don't they get hot, they get brittle, and they're like cards once, once you start peeling the deck open, then it just starts coming apart, right? So that the shingle roof, in my opinion, is the most affordable, reasonable. They're 3035, year products. They're still going to ask me the same question, and they're still going to say it five years. We're only going to give you one. So I don't know if your HOA makes you buy the tile, the clay tile, the blue tile. Good luck. That stuff is expensive, yeah? I mean, it looks nice, it does, but yeah, right, right, for sure. And up north, you could have an 80 year old tile roof that people are super proud of and like it's my golden prized possession of our house, not here, no way. Yeah, right. When we did the roofs up north, our roof coverings didn't leak. So the underlayment was, you know, a guard. It was the secondary layer. That was how we built roofs, when we put them together, and we're like, you know, now you that now the guy who sells the roof is so far removed from the roof actually getting done generally, that the quality is just pathetic, right? And they're just crew after crew. They just go through and hire, you know, one dude has four friends, and they form a crew, and they sub jobs, and they hire the crew for a season, and they just give them go do these, and then the materials will be there. And then, if it's not good, they try to get that crew to go back and fix it, or that crew just disintegrates into the air, and you're left holding the roof right, and you got to deal with the workmanship, which is always the problem of everything down here. I'm always saying, well, it's functional, but the workmanship isn't so good. What was that? Shape Up cruise, yeah. Shape Up cruise. The tune up cruise for sure. So the underlayment was the other thing, make sure. I'm missing one for you guys. We did the roof, we did the openings, we did the attachment. We did clips. Oh, the roof shape, right? Roof shape. You know what a gable is, triangle, right? So in a flat side of an end house, there's a triangle at the top. That's the gable end, right? Those gables are little kites, big kites for hurricanes, right? And often in the original building code, they were toenailed to that top plate, and it's a big pressure wave, and it just popped that thing off and it flew away, right? So that Gable became a high risk item for the insurance industry. Tree. And they said, We like hip roofs, and that's what you see where the it's a crown, where the peak is in the center, right? So the roof doesn't have any triangles. The easiest way I tell people to know if it's a gable is if you're looking at the edge of the roof covering product, whatever it is, tile, shingle, metal, if you're looking at an edge of it, at the edge of a wall, that's a gable, it might not look like it because we have clipped gate clip hips, or Dutch hips, which are, you know, you take and you clip off the top of it, and you put a little triangle up there. For some architectural reason, I don't know, but, I mean, they're all just architectural features, but they're all different insurance rates now, because that what they want is that that that hip attached all the way around, so it's like a dome, and if you have those gables, they used to make us check and make sure that they got reinforced and re braced. And now they don't even ask, because again, it came to so much confusion in who was doing it and it not being done correctly that they literally stopped asking. He said, We can't even get this straight, so we're not even I see gables all the time. I go up and it's just one little one by brace diagonally from original construction when they set it up there to just hold it in place long enough that they could get the rest of the trusses up to attach it all together. And that's how it ended, and that's the only brace. So it's nailed at the bottom, and it's nailed at the sheeting, and it's just sitting there like a drum blowing in the wind because it's, it's a pressure thing that takes the roofs off of houses, right? It's the low pressure outside that causes the roof to pop off the house, and that's where the high wind stuff comes from, right? So again, it goes to the window penetration thing, and why they say it's 100% because if you burst that pressure vessel, you let the pressure in, and it blows the roof off, right? So they want it all enclosed with a nice little tight hat on the top of it, right? So you have all the windows old house that are updated, but your door has windows. No good work, yeah, even if it's that little round thing, it's like this big, yeah, that's a glazing, and it's not had a two by four shot at it. It ain't worth it to them. So it's better to not get it. Windows. Well, you can't it just got to be impact. There's impact grade stuff now. But the other thing is, is people replace the door panel, and not the frame. Well, the frame got tested too. And not only did the frame get tested, the attachment requirements are way different than what that door was put in with and packed in there with a couple of nails and shimmed in place. Now it's, you know, six inch, five inch leg flag bolts, you know, on 12 inch spaces, right? So, yeah, this is where we're going. It's not going to change, and it's literally changing the market, because the older houses have to adapt and adjust and get implemented into this new system. And in the meantime, our communities like here are all aging together, right? And it all comes to a head at some point, like nobody's immune, right? Even the big towers, the high rise towers right now are like the world of, don't touch it because of, you know, Surfside, the you know, the reserves that everybody has to get together now is just making the market stale. Is all get out because everybody wants, you know, $3 million and then there's, you know, the community assessments going on, and the communities might write an assessment out of the blue for 100 grand, especially in these condo those high rise places I see, assessments come in for the front entry pool. That's$100,000 he isn't even in the parking lot. Yeah. So this is where we are questions. Well, how are we supposed to know as people going about, yeah, I tell people, you can get the four point for your own purposes of knowing what to expect in the future, right, and understand when your insurance is about to expire, especially if it's in the summer, because if there's a hurricane. In the ocean. They're, they're not writing new policies, right? They won't write a policy under a storm watch, because they're just going to wait till the storm goes away, not taking that risk. But not only that, if you get, you know, you get the letter, and it's two weeks from the end of the month, and the insurance agents going, Hey, your policy is expiring. We need these documents. Why? Kim and I fill out that four point form. Check box, check box, check box. Every one of those is service contractor. Service contractor. Need something done. So that takes time. Your policy might expire, right? And then the storm comes and they won't write you a new one. Yeah, within three weeks of it. What's the deal with that? Our insurance, our insurance agents won't even talk to us unless our policy is it like three weeks or four weeks of expiration. What's the deal with that? I couldn't tell you. I'll have to ask my insurance agent friends, because that's an Yeah, yeah. And I could, I can speculate that what that is going on is the background changes for the underwriters that are bringing in these newer, smaller companies, and like, what was a no go for everybody else, like poly butylene, for example, is a pipe system that insurance doesn't want anything to do with. Well, all of a sudden, there's three or four underwriters in the state that'll write a policy for poly butylene. They're not going to pay you anything on anything that ever happens to it, but they will give you a policy, even though you have polybutylene in there, and you're going to pay more, but you didn't get the house repiped. And they're like, cool, I win. And then next year, that insurance company goes, cool, we're out of here. And that's what's happening. So why can't I shop outside of my policy term? That's probably why. Because there's this, this flux of companies coming and going, Really, where they won't let you shut they won't even talk to you, tell your policies at the end of the month for Bay Forest situation? Yeah, I'm not sure I'll ask that's a good question. When, when you're allowed to shop for it, but I mean, that still doesn't change the idea of knowing ahead of time what's coming at you might be in favor of, you know. And I tell people, you know, they think I only come out and, do you know, $500 home inspections? Well, I do consulting this hourly service. You know, I come out and help you with anything. Help you come out and understand what your contractors up to. You know, oftentimes I get, I've had the, I've had, I've had three different roofing companies come and tell me three different things I want to know the damn truth. I got no bone in the fight. I'm just here to tell you the truth, right? You.