The pillar guide
The Lee County wind mitigation guide: code, permits, and insurance credits
Wind mitigation is the paper trail that connects your Lee County home's storm-resistant features to your insurance bill. This guide explains the whole chain: what the building code requires when you replace windows and doors, how the permit works, how the OIR-B1-1802 inspection documents the result, and which state programs help pay for it. Every claim cites a primary source you can check.
1. The insurance credits, and the law behind them
Florida Statute 627.0629 requires residential property insurers to offer premium discounts or credits for construction features that reduce wind damage: roof shape and attachment, roof-to-wall connections, secondary water resistance, and opening protection, which is where impact windows and doors come in. The credits are not a courtesy. They are filed with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation and written into each insurer's rate plan.
How much money is at stake depends on your insurer's filing, your location, and your home. The FLOIR has published a worked example showing at least 68 percent off the wind portion of a premium for a home with full mitigation features. Treat that as a documented illustration of the ceiling, not a quote: your policy will vary, and only your insurer's filed schedule controls your numbers.
Two structural facts about the credits surprise most homeowners. First, they apply to the wind portion of the premium, not the whole bill. Second, opening protection is scored house-wide: the credit level depends on the weakest opening, so a project that upgrades 12 windows but leaves an unrated garage door changes less than you might expect. The impact windows service page covers how installers scope a whole-opening project.
2. The OIR-B1-1802 inspection, step by step
The uniform mitigation verification inspection form, OIR-B1-1802, is the document your insurer actually reads. A qualified inspector (typically a licensed home inspector, general contractor, building code inspector, architect, or engineer) walks the home, photographs the evidence, and records seven things: the building code era, roof covering, roof deck attachment, roof-to-wall attachment, roof geometry, secondary water resistance, and opening protection. A revised edition of the form took effect April 1, 2026, so confirm your inspector is using the current version (source: FLOIR).
The inspection is quick (usually under an hour) and inexpensive relative to what it documents. When it is done, you send the form to your insurer or agent and the filed credits apply at the next renewal or, with some insurers, mid-term. Details, typical pricing, and what inspectors look for on the opening protection question are on the wind mitigation inspection page .
3. What the building code requires in Lee County
All of Lee County lies in the Florida Building Code's Wind-Borne Debris Region (Lee County Land Development Code Appendix M; FBC section 1609). In the WBDR, glazed openings in most homes must be protected: either the window or door itself is impact rated (tested to ASTM E1886 and E1996), or it is covered by a code-approved shutter or panel. When you replace windows, the replacements must meet this standard. Lee County is not the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone; that stricter regime covers Miami-Dade and Broward only.
Design wind speeds here are serious: about 160 mph (ultimate, Risk Category II) around Cape Coral and about 170 mph on the barrier islands. Those are mapped values, and the exact figure is a per-address question: look yours up with the ASCE Hazard Tool or ask the installer to show the value used on your permit documents. Both paths (impact rated or shuttered) satisfy the code; the honest comparison between them lives in the impact windows vs hurricane shutters guide. This site's audience is mostly researching the impact-rated path, which trades a higher ticket for protection that is always on.
4. Permits: eConnect and product approvals
Window and door replacement in Lee County requires a permit. In unincorporated Lee County the filing goes through the county's eConnect portal ; inside city limits (Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Estero, Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel) the municipal building department handles it, with each city page on this site naming the right office. Two things the permit reviewer will look for (source: leegov.com exterior openings guidance ):
- A current Florida product approval number or Miami-Dade NOA for every unit being installed, matching the product on the quote.
- Installation per the approval's installation instructions, verified at final inspection.
The permit record is an asset. It proves to a future buyer, appraiser, and insurer that the openings were upgraded legally, and the final inspection date anchors the "year of installation" answer on insurance paperwork. The full walkthrough, including owner responsibilities and jurisdiction quirks, is on the Lee County permits page.
5. My Safe Florida Home and the $500 refund
Two state programs can offset the cost of opening protection as of August 2026. Both are demand programs with their own rules; date-check them before you plan around them.
My Safe Florida Home. The state's inspection-and-grant program was reappropriated over $405 million (combined with the Condo Pilot Program) in the FY2026-27 budget signed June 29, 2026. It offers free wind mitigation inspections to eligible homeowners, and its grant tier is income-restricted with matching rules. Apply and confirm current status at mysafeflhome.com . The program's own guide on this site covers eligibility and how the grant interacts with a window project.
The up-to-$500 refund. Florida's 2022 to 2024 point-of-sale tax break on impact windows expired on June 30, 2024. What exists now is different: a refund of up to $500 per homestead (site-built homes with a just value of $700,000 or less) for qualifying impact-resistant windows, doors, and garage doors purchased from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029, claimed from the Florida Department of Revenue (HB 7031, 2026). You pay tax at purchase and apply for the refund after. Any page that still advertises a point-of-sale break in 2026 is out of date.
6. The sensible order to do it all in
- 1 Get the baseline. A wind mitigation inspection (or the free MSFH inspection if eligible) tells you what your home already scores and which openings are the gap.
- 2 Scope against the full opening list: windows, doors, sliders, garage door, skylights. House-wide classification is what moves the credit.
- 3 Get quotes from a licensed installer, with the product approval number for every unit in writing.
- 4 Permit, install, pass final inspection, and keep the permit number.
- 5 Re-inspect on the current 1802 form, send it to your insurer, and file the DOR refund claim if your purchase qualifies.
Where to go next
- Whole-home impact windows : the flagship project this guide's math usually points at.
- Hurricane window replacement : the permit-to-final process when openings are being replaced.
- Wind mitigation inspection : the low-cost first step that documents everything.