It is the first question almost every St. Petersburg homeowner asks when window prices come up, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a sales one. The short version: yes, Florida law requires insurers to offer a discount for qualifying wind mitigation features, and impact windows are one of them. The longer version is where people get caught out — because how the work is done decides whether you see a penny of it.
What Florida law actually requires
Under Section 627.0629 of the Florida Statutes, residential property insurers must offer discounts, credits or rate differentials to homeowners who install fixtures or construction techniques that reduce hurricane damage. Opening protection — impact-rated windows and doors, or approved shutters — is one of the recognised categories, alongside roof covering, roof deck attachment and roof-to-wall connections.
Two things that phrasing does not promise: an amount, or that it applies to your whole bill. The credit attaches to the wind portion of the premium, and its size varies by carrier and by the rest of your house. Anyone quoting you a dollar saving before seeing your policy is guessing. Since October 2023 insurers have been required to publish their available mitigation discounts on their own websites, so your carrier's numbers are usually a click away — or one call to your agent.
The form the whole thing hangs on
Your discount does not come from the invoice. It comes from the Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection Form (OIR-B1-1802), completed by an authorised inspector and submitted to your insurer. If that form has not been filled out and filed, the windows are in the wall doing nothing for your premium.
Worth knowing: the form is generally valid for up to five years, provided nothing material about the structure changes. A revised version of it took effect on 1 April 2026, so an inspection done today is not identical to one done a few years ago. And a wind mitigation inspection is inexpensive relative to what it can return — if you have never had one, it is worth doing even if you never touch a window.
Why doing "just the bad ones" usually earns nothing
This is the part that costs people money, so we say it early and plainly.
Opening protection is generally assessed as an all-or-nothing item. To be credited as a protected home, every glazed opening typically has to be protected — windows, glass doors, sliders, skylights, and in most cases the garage door. Replace six windows out of fourteen and leave the rest, and an inspector will usually mark the house as unprotected. You will have better windows, less noise and a warmer opinion of your living room, and the same insurance bill.
If a discount is part of why you are doing this, plan the job around that from the beginning. Sometimes the sensible route is impact glass on the big west-facing openings and approved shutters on the rest — that combination can still qualify, and it is often cheaper than glazing the whole house at once. Have that conversation before you sign anything.
What the code requires in Pinellas County
Separate from insurance, there is the building code. In Florida's wind-borne debris regions, exterior openings have to resist debris impact — either with impact-rated products or approved shutter protection — and coastal Pinellas is exactly the kind of area those maps are drawn for. Design pressures vary street by street depending on exposure and the height of the house, so we do not guess at it. Replacement windows in St. Petersburg are permitted work, and the permit sets out which products and pressures your address requires — a question for the building department for your specific parcel, and one we handle as part of the job rather than leaving on your desk.
The state programme worth checking first
Before you pay for anything, look at My Safe Florida Home. It is a state programme offering free wind mitigation inspections and matching grants toward hurricane hardening, including impact windows and doors, shutters and impact-rated garage doors. Grants are income-tiered, and older applicants have had priority within their tier.
The catch is funding. The programme has opened, closed and reopened as the legislature has appropriated money to it, and the caps and rules have been adjusted more than once — so check the current status on the state's own site rather than trusting a figure in an article. Importantly, get the inspection done before the work starts. Grant programmes rarely pay for work already completed.
What impact windows will not do
They are a genuine upgrade for safety, security and noise. What they are not is a fix for a hot house. Glass is a small share of the surface area of your home, and in a Florida summer the ceiling is where most of the heat arrives. If you replace the windows and the upstairs still runs warm at four in the afternoon, the attic was the problem and still is. If comfort and power bills are the real complaint, start in the attic and treat the windows as the storm and insurance decision they actually are.
How to decide, in order
- Call your insurer or agent and ask what opening-protection credit your policy offers.
- Check whether a current wind mitigation form is already on file for your house.
- Look up My Safe Florida Home before committing to any work.
- Get the scope quoted as a whole-house plan, not window by window.
- Confirm the permit and product requirements for your address.
We will come out, measure, and give you a plan that accounts for all five — free, and with no pressure to do the whole house at once if that is not where you are.