Coastal Texas
The Texas Windstorm Inspection Program
Along the Texas coast, a building becomes insurable through a paper trail that starts before the first nail. This is how that system fits together, and where each part of it is decided.
Overview
What the program is for
A building on the Texas coast becomes insurable through a paper trail that starts before the work does.
Fourteen Texas counties and part of a fifteenth sit inside an area the state has designated for windstorm purposes. Inside it, whether a structure can be insured against wind and hail through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association depends on a certificate, and whether that certificate can be issued depends on decisions made long before anyone applies for it.
The program is not complicated, but it is sequential, and almost everything that goes wrong with it goes wrong because a step was taken out of order. Work that was built correctly and inspected by nobody is in a materially worse position than work that was inspected while it was open to view. That single asymmetry explains most of what follows.
Who decides what
Five parties, and none of them answers to the others
Most confusion about this program is really confusion about which body has authority over the step in front of you.
- Texas Department of Insurance
- Runs the windstorm inspection program, employs its own inspectors, appoints engineers to inspect on its behalf, and issues the certificate of compliance itself. The certificate is a TDI document, not an engineer's document.
- Texas Windstorm Insurance Association
- Writes wind and hail coverage inside the designated area for property that cannot obtain it in the ordinary market. TWIA is the reason the certificate matters commercially: TDI issues it, and TWIA eligibility depends on it.
- The appointed engineer
- A Texas licensed Professional Engineer appointed by TDI for windstorm inspections. The appointment is what permits an engineer to inspect for the program rather than merely to hold an opinion about a building.
- The TDI inspector
- A departmental inspector who handles non-structural work, which TDI describes as including most repairs, alterations, and re-roofs. A great deal of coastal work never needs an engineer at all.
- The city building department
- Enforces the adopted building code through the permit. It runs alongside the windstorm inspection rather than replacing it, and satisfying one does not satisfy the other.
The cluster
Eight questions this program raises
Each of these is decided in a different place, so each is written separately rather than summarized here.
01
The designated catastrophe area
Does this address fall inside the program at all?
02
WPI-1 and the inspection sequence
What has to happen before the first nail, and in what order?
03
Certificates for completed construction
The work is already finished and nobody inspected it. Now what?
04
The TDI appointment
What is an appointed engineer, and why can't any engineer do this?
05
Re-roofs, repairs, and alterations
Is a re-roof really a certifiable improvement?
06
Openings and opening protection
Why do windows and doors decide so much of this?
07
Coastal transactions
What does a closing actually need, and who finds out too late?
08
TWIA coverage and eligibility
How does a certificate turn into insurance?
Where this sits
The program, the firm, and the coast
These pages describe a regulatory program. What this firm is built to do about it is a separate document.
The designated area runs through the Coastal Bend, the upper coast, and the Rio Grande Valley, and the wind, soil, and permitting conditions differ enough between them that each coverage region is written separately. The firm itself is based in Corpus Christi, inside the designated area.
What 254 Engineering LLC is built to deliver on windstorm work, once it opens for work, is set out on the windstorm capability page. Nothing in this cluster is an offer to perform engineering services, because the firm is not yet in a position to make one.
Start a job
Tell us what the letter is for and we will tell you yes or no
Send the address, what the document is for, and the date it has to be in hand. Some jobs this firm cannot take, and you will hear that in the first conversation rather than after you have paid and waited.