Drawing on six case studies, this policy brief analyzes a variety of financing mechanisms that states are using to improve property-level resilience, with a focus on scaling IBHS FORTIFIED Roof™ adoption. The brief identifies common program design features and lessons for states seeking to reduce future hazard losses, strengthen insurance markets, and protect public finances.

Unlike some states, Alabama does not have a statewide building code. Instead, the coastal counties of Baldwin and Mobile have adopted a building code supplement that brings local construction requirements closer to Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety FORTIFIED Roof™ standards. This case study demonstrates that resilience financing does not always require creating an entirely new financial instrument.

Following the massive impact of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Florida established some of the nation’s strongest building codes for mitigating hurricane and wind damage. While most of these programs are not explicitly centered on Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety FORTIFIED Roof™ certification, they have created the underlying contractor networks, consumer awareness, inspection infrastructure, and insurance incentive systems that make more advanced resilience standards increasingly viable.

Louisiana faces some of the highest hurricane and wind-related property risks in the United States. It also has a substantial share of older housing—particularly in coastal areas—that predates modern, post–Hurricane Katrina wind-resistance standards. In response to repeated storm losses and growing insurance market stress, the state developed a set of resilience-oriented financing and policy tools designed to expand adoption of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety FORTIFIED Roof™ standard and related mitigation measures.

North Carolina is among the most hurricane-exposed states in the United States, with extensive coastal development and a large stock of aging housing vulnerable to wind-driven rain and roof failure. This case study illustrates how North Carolina has funded property-level risk reduction without relying on homeowners to fully shoulder the increased costs.

Oklahoma’s Strengthen Oklahoma Homes (SOH) program, publicly called OKReady, is the state’s primary approach to financing property-level roof retrofits for wind and hail risk. Oklahoma’s model relies on regulator-controlled insurance sector fee revenue administered through the state insurance department. This creates a dedicated mitigation funding pathway tied to the state’s insurance regulatory system rather than to general appropriations or insurer-owned surplus.

This case study explores an emerging resilience finance concept in which future reductions in insurance claims are treated as a potential repayment stream for upfront investments in stronger roofs. While the pilot has not yet been fully implemented, the underlying structure is sufficiently novel to warrant examination as a potential new model for financing property-level risk reduction.

This guidebook from ICLEI USA and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute offers a practical framework to help local governments systematically remove barriers to finance and structure their resilience projects in ways that can attract private investment.

Communities across the country are losing ground to floods, fires, heat, and storms. Insufficient resilience investment is often framed as a simple shortage of money; however, there is existing capital across federal agencies, state programs, pension funds, philanthropy, community lenders, and private infrastructure investors. Better coordination is needed, not just access to funding. On April 20, 2026, Duke University and the Milken Institute brought together more than 40 senior practitioners—from green banks, infrastructure investment, commercial finance, think tanks, academia, housing and community development finance, local and state government, climate adaptation and resilience organizations, and international development—to examine what financial infrastructure is needed so that capital consistently reaches the communities and projects that need it.

Resilience investment will not scale through better metrics alone; it requires practical handoffs that link risk reduction to performance, capital, insurance, public budgets, and community outcomes. This was the central takeaway from an April 22, 2026, workshop during DC Climate Week, hosted by Duke University.