Travelers Fortifies Communities: Building Strong, Resilient Communities

Resiliency is important in the face of changing climate conditions. Extreme wind events like hurricanes and tornadoes can cause severe damage and greatly disrupt families and communities. To help build stronger, more resilient communities, we joined forces with Habitat for Humanity^®, a nonprofit organization that helps families build and improve their homes, and the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) in 2011 to build affordable, wind-resistant homes to FORTIFIED Home^™ standards throughout the country.

Developed by IBHS, FORTIFIED Home^™ construction practices are designed to help homeowners and communities better weather future storms, including hurricanes, high winds, hail and severe thunderstorms. Building FORTIFIED means exceeding the minimum standards set by most building codes for construction techniques and materials. Our partnership shows that by making a few important changes in home construction standards, homes are better able to withstand storms without significantly adding to the cost. To date, Travelers has supported the construction of more than 100 FORTIFIED Habitat homes.

Building on the success of the program with Habitat for Humanity, Travelers has been adding and scaling resilient rebuilding partnerships since 2018.

SBP

In 2019, Travelers launched a FORTIFIED building pilot program with SBP, a nonprofit organization that works to shrink the time between disaster and recovery. Since then, SBP has completed 775 FORTIFIED roofs across the Southeast, with 565 of these roofs funded by Travelers. In 2025 alone, the organization built 94 roofs to FORTIFIED standards.¹

Homes built in New Orleans were tested by Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm that hit in late August 2021, and the homes held up well, consistent with their design; the SBP roofs withstood the storm, unlike many others in the neighborhood. Smart Home America, IBHS and other resilience advocacy groups have used these homes as examples of the benefits of FORTIFIED building and to advocate for stronger building codes, which Louisiana adopted in January 2023. Homes in Houma, Louisiana, were tested during Hurricane Francine in September 2024 and also performed as designed – sustaining no damage.

Travelers funding also supported the construction of SBP’s first multifamily rental homes built to FORTIFIED standards. The organization broke ground on two 7-unit buildings in Houston and 38 units in New Orleans in 2024. In addition to being built to FORTIFIED standards, the units are affordable and sustainable to ENERGY STAR^® standards. In 2025, the first tenants moved in.

Smart Home America

Smart Home America works to educate leaders, residents and the building industry about smarter, safer buildings and evaluates policies, products and techniques that are designed to provide for resilient and sustainable communities. Travelers’ partnership with the organization began in 2018 and was focused on helping Houston recover from Hurricane Harvey. Most recently, Travelers funding allowed the organization to:

• Provide training about climate-resilient construction best practices.
• Successfully support policy development in 13 states, including Arkansas’ Strengthen Arkansas Homes grant program, Georgia’s statewide FORTIFIED insurance incentives, Louisiana’s Fortify Homes grant program, and New Mexico’s Wildfire Prepared Act.
• Support 19 nonprofit developers in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi in connection with building new homes to FORTIFIED standards.
• Provide technical assistance that led to IBHS certification of more than 630 evaluators, roofers and contractors in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas.

Rebuilding Together

In 2025, Travelers launched a pilot partnership with Rebuilding Together. Through its Disaster Readiness and Recovery program, the organization offers disaster mitigation, preparedness and response, as well as long-term recovery support to help families and communities affected by natural disasters rebuild homes. With Travelers funding, Rebuilding Together put four FORTIFIED roofs on homes in the Tampa Bay, Florida, region recovering from hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Community benefits

• In 2025, approximately 100 FORTIFIED homes for low-income families were built by Habitat for Humanity, SBP and Rebuilding Together across the United States, made possible in part with funding from Travelers.
• Staff from numerous Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together affiliates throughout the country, along with SBP construction staff, have learned about safer building standards and have been certified in IBHS FORTIFIED construction standards, increasing familiarity with FORTIFIED building practices.
• Disasters often disproportionately impact low-income communities. The greatest asset of low-income homeowners tends to be their home. After a disaster, however, housing values drastically decrease. When a home is rebuilt, the value is restored, giving the resident more leverage and potential for upward economic mobility.

Travelers benefits

• Data gathered from the FORTIFIED program is used at hearings to influence stronger building codes in hurricane-prone regions and to demonstrate the affordability of building to FORTIFIED standards. This played a part in the success in strengthening the building codes in Louisiana.
• Since we entered our partnership with Habitat for Humanity, dozens of Travelers volunteers have helped build FORTIFIED Habitat homes, increasing our employees’ knowledge of FORTIFIED Home standards. Learn more about Travelers Fortifies Communities.
• Thousands of our employees have participated in Habitat builds – both FORTIFIED and traditional – driving engagement by working together to strengthen our communities.
• In addition to its positive impact on communities, these partnerships benefit both Travelers and the insurance industry by increasing the number of resilient homes in vulnerable communities.

Related resources

• Travelers Institute^® webinar: Wind, Hail, Rain, Fire: LIVE from IBHS!

¹ Data from SBPUSA.org.