Windstorm program
Filing WPI-1 and Inspecting While Work Is Open
The application comes first, the inspections happen while the work is visible, and the certificate comes last. Reversing any part of that is the most expensive mistake available on a coastal project.
First
The application precedes the work
Form WPI-1 notifies the department that a project exists, before it exists.
Form WPI-1, the application for a certificate of compliance, is submitted to the Texas Department of Insurance before work begins. It is required whoever performs the inspections, whether that is a departmental inspector or an appointed engineer.
It is a small piece of paper with a large consequence. It is what puts the project inside the program on the department's own records, and it establishes the point from which inspections can be requested. A project that has not been entered cannot be inspected as ongoing construction, and work that proceeds unentered has already started down the harder path without anyone deciding to.
During
The inspection has to see the work
TDI's own wording is that inspections happen during, not before or after, the construction or repair.
Windstorm inspection is sequenced with construction rather than performed once at the end. Roof deck attachment, sheathing, framing connections, and opening protection are all examined while they are open to view, because once they are covered they cannot be examined at all without uncovering them.
The department publishes a target of conducting inspections within 48 hours of the requested date, excluding weekends and holidays. Planning around that target is the difference between a trade waiting a day and a trade being sent home. On a coastal job with weather pressure and a crew booked elsewhere next week, that is the schedule risk that actually bites.
Nothing about this is a formality. The single most common reason a coastal structure cannot be certified is not that the work was done badly. It is that nobody was there to see it while it could still be seen.
Who
Not every stage needs an engineer
The department employs its own inspectors, and TDI describes them as handling non-structural work including most repairs, alterations, and re-roofs. A great deal of coastal work is inspected this way and never involves an engineer.
An appointed Texas licensed Professional Engineer inspects on the department's behalf where the work calls for it, and is the route for structures and situations a departmental inspector does not cover. Which route a given project takes is a question worth settling before the schedule is built around an assumption.
Last
The department issues the certificate
Once all required inspections are approved, TDI issues the WPI-8 certificate of compliance. The certificate is issued by the department itself, on the strength of the inspection record, and it is what makes the building eligible for wind and hail coverage through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
This is the distinction that causes trouble at closing. An engineer's letter, however well written, is not the certificate. The document a carrier or a title company is looking for is the one the department issued.
The cost of reversing it
What skipping the sequence actually buys
Work completed without inspection is not uncertifiable. It is certifiable the hard way.
Construction finished without windstorm inspection goes down the completed construction route instead, which requires a sealed post-construction inspection report rather than a series of observations made while the work was open. That is a fundamentally harder evidentiary problem, because the evidence has been covered up by the finished building.
Sometimes the remedy is to expose the work again. On a finished house that means opening ceilings, soffits, or roof covering to look at connections that were photographable for free three months earlier. The full completed construction path is set out separately.
Questions
What people ask about this
- Who files the WPI-1?
- The application is filed with the Texas Department of Insurance before work begins. In practice it is usually handled by the contractor or the engineer, but the obligation attaches to the project rather than to a trade, and an owner who assumes it was filed and finds out otherwise at the end has a problem that is theirs.
- How long does an inspection take to schedule?
- TDI publishes a target of conducting inspections within 48 hours of the requested date, excluding weekends and holidays. That is the department's own stated target rather than a guarantee, and coastal weather and volume affect it.
Elsewhere in the program
The rest of the windstorm system
Each part of this program is decided by a different party, which is why they are separate pages.
The designated catastrophe area
Does this address fall inside the program at all?
Certificates for completed construction
The work is already finished and nobody inspected it. Now what?
The TDI appointment
What is an appointed engineer, and why can't any engineer do this?
The program overview sets out who decides what, and the windstorm capability page covers what this firm is built to deliver once it opens for work.
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.