BATON ROUGE – The House voted 87-9 to allocate $64 million from excess collections by the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to expand a program that offers $10,000 grants to homeowners who install fortified roofs.

House Bill 1187 by Rep. Paul Sawyer, R-Baton Rouge, would reallocate surplus funds from Citizens’ emergency assessment to spur the installation of more fortified roofs, which Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple said eventually would lower insurance premiums for property owners statewide.

Temple, who worked closely with Sawyer on the bill, explained at a recent hearing why the fortified-roof program is popular and how every dollar allocated from Citizens would go toward reducing premiums statewide.

"They have determined that they will have some surplus money, and we all agreed that the fortified-roof program is the quickest, most assured way to bring premium relief to citizens on their homeowners’ insurance,” Temple said.

Louisiana homeowners apply for the $10,000 grants through a lottery system, and demand for the grants has always exceeded the supply since the program started in 2023.

Temple said in the last three years, 4,656 fortified roof grants have been awarded, with 4,600 of those grants being used to fortify existing roofs. In addition, approximately 6,900 fortified roofs have been installed without any state grants, bringing the total to 11,500 fortified roofs.

Currently, the program receives $30 million annually. Temple said that from the $64 million in new money, $13 million must be held in a legal reserve.

The bill now goes to the Senate. Temple said if it is signed into law, funds could be dispersed in September or October.

Citizens is a nonprofit that provides insurance for people who cannot obtain private coverage. It charges higher premiums than those of private insurers.

Temple said that after Katrina in 2005, Citizens had to do an emergency assessment of $978.2 million to pay claims from the hurricane. That was bonded out over a 20-year period, and by April 2025, it was determined that the extra assessments were no longer needed.

But it took some insurance companies months to stop the assessments, and that’s how the $64 million surplus came about.

In an earlier interview with the LSU Manship School News Service, Temple explained how an increase in the number of fortified homes in Louisiana would lower the state’s insurance risk factor. He said lower risk and additional competition among insurers should mean reduced prices.

Temple said the results can already be seen in Alabama, where insurance premiums for everyone across the state dropped once 20% to 25% of homes were fortified.