Insurance guide // FS 627.0629 mechanics

Impact windows and Florida insurance credits, without the sales math

Nobody outside your insurer can tell you what impact windows will save on your premium, and this page will not pretend otherwise. What it can explain is the machinery: Florida Statute 627.0629 requires insurers to offer premium credits for features that reduce windstorm loss, and a wind mitigation inspection on form OIR-B1-1802 is how your house proves it has them.

Why the credit exists at all

The credit is a legal requirement, not a courtesy. Florida Statute 627.0629 requires residential property insurers to offer premium discounts or credits for construction techniques and features that have been demonstrated to reduce windstorm loss. Opening protection, the category impact windows and doors fall into, is one of those features, alongside roof characteristics. Each insurer files its credit structure with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, which is exactly why the amounts differ from carrier to carrier: the statute mandates that credits exist, and the filed rates decide what they are worth on your policy.

For a Brevard homeowner, the practical meaning is simple. If your openings are protected and documented, your insurer is required to have a credit on file for that fact. If they are protected but undocumented, you are paying for a feature your policy cannot see.

What the OIR-B1-1802 inspection documents

Form OIR-B1-1802, the uniform mitigation verification inspection form, is the single document the whole system runs on. A qualified inspector walks the house and reports the features insurers credit: the roof covering and its attachment, the roof shape (hip roofs perform differently than gables in wind), the roof-to-wall connections, secondary water resistance under the roof covering, and opening protection, which is where impact windows, impact doors, and rated shutters enter. The form was revised effective April 1, 2026, so confirm your inspector is filing the current version; an outdated form is a needless argument with your carrier.

The inspector's evidence for opening protection is the product documentation this site keeps pointing at: the Florida product approval or Miami-Dade NOA number that states what each unit was tested and approved to resist. Keep those numbers from your quotes and permits; they feed the inspection. The wind mitigation inspection page covers who can perform the inspection and how the report flows to your insurer.

Why one unprotected opening can sink the credit

The opening-protection credit generally requires all openings protected: windows, entry doors, sliding doors, garage doors, and skylights. The form classifies the house by its weakest opening, so 16 impact windows plus one original garage door can document as unprotected for credit purposes. The logic is sound even when it stings: wind that enters through any single breached opening pressurizes the whole structure.

This is the fact that should shape project planning. Phased replacement spreads cost, but the credit typically arrives only when the last opening is protected, so sequence the project with that finish line in mind and get the inspection after it, not before. The impact windows page covers the products, and the Brevard wind mitigation guide places the inspection in the full sequence, from the county wind map (which governs by address, so verify your requirement before buying anything) through permit, install, and paperwork.

How to get the inspection, including free

The paid route is straightforward: a qualified inspector performs the wind mitigation inspection and completes the OIR-B1-1802, typically in under an hour on site. The free route is My Safe Florida Home, the state program funded at over $600 million for FY2026-27 (as of July 2026). Eligible homeowners get a free wind mitigation inspection, and the same report becomes the gateway to matching grants for hardening upgrades, inspection first, grant second. If your project might qualify, apply for the inspection before you sign anything; the sequence is the whole game, and the My Safe Florida Home guide walks through it.

Why no honest source promises a dollar figure

Because the number is not knowable from outside your policy. Every insurer files its own rates and credit structure, the credit applies to the windstorm portion of the premium rather than the whole bill, and your deductible, coverage amount, and territory all move the result. Two neighbors with identical impact windows and identical OIR-B1-1802 forms can see different outcomes because they carry different policies. A sales pitch quoting a specific percentage is quoting someone else's policy, or nobody's.

The verifiable version of the claim: the credit is required by statute, the form documents your eligibility, and your own insurer or agent can run the completed form against your actual policy before you commit to a project. Ask for that quote in writing. It converts the vaguest promise in the window business into a number you can actually plan with.

Where this matters most in Brevard

Everywhere windstorm premiums bite, which in this county is nearly everywhere, but the arithmetic is sharpest near the water. Beachside addresses in Satellite Beach sit deep in the wind-borne debris region and carry the coastal premiums to match, so documented opening protection is working against a larger windstorm line. Inland, Viera and Suntree show the other pattern: newer master-planned stock where many homes already have strong roof features on the form, leaving opening protection as the remaining box to document. Either way the path is the same: protect every opening, file the current form, and make your insurer price what the house actually is.