Extreme weather is reshaping more than the built environment; it is destabilizing the insurance markets that protect homes and businesses. Premiums climb year over year, policies narrow their coverage, and in some regions carriers are withdrawing altogether. This trend forces communities to confront a hard truth: resilience is not optional, it is now an economic necessity.

When Insurance Is the Canary in the Climate Coal Mine

Most conversations about resilient construction in insurance focus narrowly on fortified roofs, upgraded windows, or impact-resistant siding. These measures matter, but they leave out the single most defining element of a building’s structural performance — the wall system itself. Insulated concrete forms (ICFs) provide unparalleled strength, energy control, and hazard resistance, and their overlooked value in insurance models is a gap that deserves immediate attention.

Insurance as an Early Warning System

Insurance functions as the first economic signal of rising climate risks. As underwriters measure loss patterns from hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and severe storms, they adjust rates and coverage accordingly. The result: resilient construction practices are rewarded while vulnerable methods are penalized. The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) has documented that resilient construction delivers strong economic returns by preventing costly claims.

What the Data Shows from FORTIFIED and ACIIR

Homes built to IBHS FORTIFIED standards are designed to strengthen buildings against severe weather by focusing on roofs, openings, and structural attachments. In Hurricane Sally, those homes experienced 15–40 percent lower claim severity, saving insurers more than $100 million in a single event.

By the Numbers: ROI and Claim Reductions

Resilient construction can deliver up to a 72% ROI, cut claim frequency by 55–74%, and reduce claim severity by 15–40%, according to IBHS and the University of Alabama’s ACIIR. The ACIIR study expanded on these findings, projecting that resilient construction produces long-term economic gains by lowering both claim frequency and loss severity at scale.

These results prove insurers are watching — and rewarding — resilience. But while programs like FORTIFIED emphasize roofing and envelope detailing, they rarely address the deeper structural continuity that determines whether a house stands or fails. That blind spot keeps ICF from receiving the recognition it deserves as a risk-mitigation system.

Resilience Pays: What the Data Tells Us

Understanding how insurers calculate risk — and how ICF changes those calculations — is critical to recognizing its overlooked value.

Weaknesses in Conventional Assumptions

The actuarial side of the insurance industry works with probabilities and historic loss data. Unfortunately, traditional wood-frame walls have dominated the baseline assumptions. Their susceptibility to high winds, flying debris, fire spread, and long-term moisture damage makes them the silent driver of many claims.

ICF’s Tested Performance

ICF construction, by contrast, resists wind loads, slows flame spread, and prevents moisture intrusion thanks to its continuous concrete core and airtight envelope.

• ICF wall assemblies provide the continuous load path required by ICC 500/FEMA safe-room standards, with reinforced concrete cores capable of resisting extreme winds exceeding 200 mph and design ratings up to 250 mph (ICC 500 / FEMA P-361 design criteria).

• In wildfire-prone regions, ICF walls provide a two-to-four-hour fire rating, dramatically reducing ignition risk compared to combustible framing.

These metrics translate directly into reduced claims frequency — and therefore should translate into reduced premiums.

The Gap in Insurance Models

While insurers have begun to recognize roofing assemblies or impact glazing, they have yet to integrate ICF into their actuarial models at scale. The result is an underestimation of its true risk-reduction value, which means both insurers and homeowners miss out on cost savings.

ICF: The Quiet Engine of Insurance ROI

The insurance market tends to reward what it can measure. Roofing, windows, and siding have been easier to quantify, so they have received attention. But the foundation of resilience — the wall assembly — remains undervalued. ICF walls are not an incremental upgrade; they redefine risk profiles.

Structural Performance in Extreme Winds

When homes and buildings constructed with ICF are exposed to hurricane winds, the mass and continuity of reinforced concrete keep structures intact while neighboring frame-built homes suffer catastrophic loss.

Fire Resistance and Wildfire Risk

When wildfires advance, the fire-rated concrete core and insulating foam layers slow ignition, creating survivable envelopes that prevent total-loss claims. Fox Blocks ICF walls are tested to achieve two- to four-hour fire ratings under ASTM E119, giving insurers a measurable benchmark when evaluating wildfire and urban fire risk. These differences are not just anecdotal — they align with the performance benchmarks insurers already recognize in other materials.

ICF homes have, and are being designed and built to be totally fire resistant. The roofing system, eaves, soffit, fascia and wall finishes are all fire resistant and not susceptible to wind blown sparks or direct flame.

Flood Resistance

Flooding and storm surge have become more prevalent with climate change. ICFs provide structural resilience for storm surge and flood waters. The wall assembly - concrete and EPS insulation can withstand water and is easily remediated after the disaster without removing the insulation, minimizing the risk and claim.

Connecting Construction Decisions to Insurance Outcomes

Fox Blocks has long emphasized the connection between construction decisions and insurance outcomes. In published guidance, the company shows how resilient materials directly impact premiums and coverage options. The message is clear: homeowners and developers choosing ICF should expect stronger negotiating positions with carriers and long-term protection from volatile markets.

Why Insurers Should Pay Attention to ICF Builders

Recognizing how ICF reshapes risk portfolios makes clear why insurers and policymakers cannot afford to overlook it.

Broadening Resilience Criteria

If insurers want to stabilize risk portfolios in high-exposure regions, they must broaden their resilience criteria. Rewarding ICF adoption is a natural step, because it aligns actuarial logic with construction science. Every claim prevented saves both the policyholder and the insurer, and when claim severity drops across an entire community, market stability improves.

Evidence of ROI

For insurers, the evidence is clear — resilience investments consistently outperform their initial cost, and expanding criteria to include ICF would strengthen portfolios even further. A 72 percent ROI in avoided claims is not marginal — it is transformative for both insurers and insureds. Yet without ICF fully integrated into resilience scoring systems, the industry is leaving money on the table.

A Call to Rethink Resilience

Fox Blocks challenges insurers and policymakers to rethink resilience beyond surface-level protections. It’s time to recognize that a resilient wall system underpins every other protective measure. A fortified roof is meaningless if the walls cannot withstand uplift forces. Impact-rated windows save little if flames consume combustible framing. True resilience demands a structural core designed for hazard resistance, and ICF delivers exactly that.

Fox Blocks’ Vision: Building Risk into Resilience

The next decade will see insurers tightening requirements, governments expanding resilience codes, and homeowners seeking stable coverage. ICF must become a baseline standard for resilience, rather than an optional alternative.

Fox Blocks is not simply producing materials; we are shaping the way resilience is defined in economic terms. Our work demonstrates that lower homeowner insurance premiums are achievable when resilient wall assemblies are prioritized. This overlooked value is not a marketing point — it is a call to action for an industry facing escalating losses.

Reframing Resilience: The Insurance Imperative

Insurance serves as both a financial safeguard and a measure of society’s readiness for risk. By undervaluing ICF, the insurance industry misses the deeper potential of resilient construction. Builders, developers, and policymakers must realign actuarial models with the science of structure—not surface protection alone.

The overlooked value of ICF in resilient building insurance is the gap Fox Blocks is determined to close. By setting this agenda, Fox Blocks leads the conversation that contractors, engineers, and homeowners already know: ICF building is the foundation of true resilience, lower risk, and long-term economic stability.