Coastal and Windstorm Home Insurance in Texas

What coastal and windstorm home insurance covers in Texas

Coastal home insurance in Texas splits storm damage across two contracts: a homeowners policy that covers fire, theft, water from inside the house, and liability, and a separate windstorm policy that covers wind and hail.

Insurers writing near the Texas coast commonly exclude windstorm and hail from the homeowners form. The exclusion is printed on the declarations page, usually as a windstorm exclusion endorsement, and it is easy to miss on a renewal.

A windstorm policy pays for:

• Roof, siding, and window damage caused by wind
• Rain that enters through an opening the wind created
• Wind damage to a detached garage, fence, or other structure, when those are scheduled

Rising water is a different loss. Storm surge, bayou overflow, and street flooding are paid by a National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policy, never by the windstorm form.

The Texas counties where TWIA writes windstorm

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) is the residual windstorm market for the Texas coast, created under Texas Insurance Code ch. 2210.

TWIA writes in the 14 first-tier coastal counties:

• Aransas, Brazoria, Calhoun, Cameron, Chambers
• Galveston, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Matagorda
• Nueces, Refugio, San Patricio, Willacy

TWIA also writes in the part of Harris County east of State Highway 146, which is the only place where a county line is not the boundary.

TWIA is a market of last resort rather than a first stop. A property owner has to show that the private market declined windstorm coverage, and the declination goes in the file with the application.

How a named-storm deductible works

A named-storm deductible on a Texas coastal policy is stated as a percentage of the dwelling limit, not as a flat dollar amount.

The mechanism catches people out because the deductible moves with Coverage A. Raising the dwelling limit to keep up with rebuilding costs raises the out-of-pocket amount on the same policy, in the same motion, without anything else changing.

Two deductibles often sit on one coastal file:

• A named-storm deductible, which applies when the National Weather Service has given the system a name
• A plain windstorm and hail deductible, which applies to any other wind event

The named-storm percentage is the higher of the two on most forms. Hail damage from an ordinary Gulf Coast thunderstorm runs through the lower one, which is the subject of Does Insurance Cover Hail Damage?.

What a WPI-8 certificate of compliance does

A WPI-8 is the certificate of compliance the Texas Department of Insurance issues for a structure inspected against the windstorm building code inside the designated catastrophe area.

TWIA eligibility runs through that certificate. Construction, repair, or alteration done after the building code applied has to be inspected and certified, and a roof replaced without an inspection can put an otherwise insurable house outside TWIA eligibility.

Three points decide how much trouble this becomes:

• The inspection happens during the work, by a qualified inspector or a licensed engineer
• Certifying finished work after the fact usually means opening it back up
• The certificate stays with the property, so it is worth asking for at closing

Property owners on the coast should treat the WPI-8 as part of the roof file, alongside the invoice and the warranty.

What Aulona Insurance Group can place on the Texas coast

Aulona Insurance Group places coastal home coverage in the Tier 1 and Tier 2 coastal counties, windstorm policy included.

Aulona Insurance Group places, on the coast:

• Homeowners coverage for owner-occupied coastal homes
• The separate windstorm policy that sits alongside it
• Dwelling fire, DP-1 and DP-3, on coastal rental and seasonal property
• Condo unit owner and renters coverage
• Flood through the National Flood Insurance Program and Write Your Own carriers
• Personal umbrella coverage above the home and auto liability limits

Luka Cenaj, the agency’s licensed principal, goes through the roof, the WPI-8 status, and the deductible structure on a recorded call before anything is quoted.

Where Aulona Insurance Group is not the right fit

Aulona Insurance Group cannot place every coastal risk, and a homeowner with a closing date should hear the limits before the file is opened.

Outside what Aulona Insurance Group places on the coast:

• A coastal risk that has to go to surplus lines, which the agency cannot place in-house and which older or heavily claimed coastal houses often require
• Commercial and habitational property on the coast, written on the business side inside a program that caps a business owners policy at $5 million of total insured value per location

Aulona Insurance Group also does not issue WPI-8 certificates or perform windstorm inspections. A qualified inspector certifies the structure and the Texas Department of Insurance issues the certificate, and the agency works from the certificate that already exists.

What moves the price of coastal home coverage in Texas

The premium on a Texas coastal policy is set by the insurer, not by Aulona Insurance Group. Property is rated by location, and the county and the distance to the coast are the first inputs.

Rating inputs on a Texas coastal file:

• The age, material, and attachment of the roof, including whether a WPI-8 covers it
• Construction type, elevation, and whether the house sits on piers
• The named-storm deductible percentage selected
• The dwelling limit, set at rebuilding cost rather than sale price
• Claim history on the address, which follows the property

Aulona Insurance Group publishes no premium on this site and does not rank insurers by price.

What to have ready before you ask an agent

A coastal file moves faster when the paperwork is in one place, because coastal underwriting asks for documents that an inland file never needs.

Have these ready:

• The full address, the county, and the year the house was built
• Roof age, roof material, and the date of the last replacement
• The WPI-8 certificate number, if the property has one
• The current homeowners declarations page and any separate windstorm declarations page
• The flood zone, and the elevation certificate if one was issued
• Any wind or hail claim filed on the address, with the year

The call runs on (945) 600-6008, in English or Albanian, and the WPI-8 status is the item that decides which markets will look at the house.