Writing the code for economic resilience with IBHS

Transcript: 

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

And if you look at a storm like Hurricane Ian, like we were able to actually quantify the benefit of the Florida Building Code. Uh, some work that we've done with, with you guys at Cotality, looking at mortgage delinquency rates. We had some of the Florida hurricanes in there to show how that good code environment actually keeps people Yeah. In their homes. Yeah. Um, and things like Milton, Helene in the last couple of years. Yeah. The, the code's proving its worth.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Welcome to Beyond the Buildings by Cotality. I am your host Maiclaire Bolton Smith, and I'm just as curious as you are about everything that happens in the property industry. On this podcast, we satisfy our collective curiosity, explore questions from every angle, and look beyond the obvious. With every conversation we illuminate what is possible. In the last 45 years, natural disaster events have cost the US over $2.9 trillion. And that's only counting events where damage exceeded $1 billion. And this number is growing. In 2024 alone, there were 27 $1 billion natural disaster events. Severe weather disrupts lives, displaces families, and drives financial loss. But what if there were a way to break the cycle? What if the solution to those rising insurance bills wasn't just in the insurer's policy, but in the very foundation of a home? Building Codes have been around for decades to ensure the safety of life and property, but there is an often overlooked connection between strong building codes and financial resilience.

For too long, we've treated building codes as a necessary regulatory checkbox, but they are in fact, one of the most potent and proactive tools for long-term economic security. They don't just protect the roof over your head. They're directly protecting savings, equity, and community tax bases. Homes that are built with resilience in mind can mean the difference between a minor repair and a total financial loss. So, to discuss how building codes insurance and long-term wealth interact, we have Dr. Ian Giammanco, managing director for standards and data analysis at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. Ian, welcome to Beyond the Buildings.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah, absolutely. It's, uh, great to be here. Maiclaire, it's good to, to talk about something that I think is, is near and dear to us at IBHS, but I think, um, serves such a bigger purpose in trying to whittle down, um, this lost trend that we're unfortunately dealing with.

Allie Barefoot:

Before we get too far in this episode, here's a friendly reminder about how to see what's coming up next in the property market. To make it easy, we curate the latest insight and analysis for you online, find us using the handle @Cotality on all of our social media channels. But now let's get back to the show.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. And, and you and I have known each other for a number of years, so I'm, I'm excited to finally get you on the podcast to really kind of break this down today. So, okay. Let's just start with some simple explanations and let's talk about the intersection between building codes and insurance costs. How are they related?

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah, so, so building codes, we, we should think of them as, um, the safety standards for our homes and businesses. Um mm-hmm you know, we were talking before we, we started this podcast about all our kids toys and things like that. If you look on 'em, they have product approvals on 'em. They have standards that they have to meet. Well, building codes are no different. They are the standards for our built environment, and they can play a role in reducing, um, the chances that that structure has major damage or structural damage. Its original intent code's. Original intent is for life safety to keep our buildings intact when we have to deal with extreme events. But over time, they've moved into the space of loss prevention, and that's where

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Okay.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

We start to get the intersection with insurance is, is not just in the structural safety, but helping reduce the damage, uh, to things like roofing materials, siding, windows, doors, things

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Like

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

That. Um, which can start to take a bite out of those financial numbers that come with extreme events.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah, no, a absolutely, and I, I know that IBHS has done a ton of, of work in this area, and I'm, I'm sure we'll get into a lot of that here. So let's, let's just take one example and look at Texas. So, at Cotality, I talk about this on the podcast all the time, that there's a lot of data that's showing a lot of residential development. We all know there's a lot of natural hazard risk. There's been, you know, everything from Hurricane Harvey to the devastating floods that happened on July 4th, 2025. Um, ha. Hazard risk is, is just, is continuing to rise. Um, but insurance premiums are also rising in Texas. So why is that the case? What's the connection there of everything?

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah, so, so Texas gets all, all the perils. If we, we want to think about it, you know, they have a threat from wildfire. Obviously, they can have winter weather events, severe vec storms and hurricanes. So they get the whole gamut. Um, Texas is also a place that really has not had much in the way of a uniform building code system. Okay.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Uh,

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

In that state, it's a home rule state. Everything is left down to local jurisdictions to make the decision. Okay. Uh, even to the point of do we want to code and which one are we gonna put in if we even decide to have one? Ah, okay. So that's been the challenge with the state of Texas. We have, uh, what we often talk about is a, uh, a, a place where we have a recommended code, but it's not enforced at the state level. Local jurisdictions can pick and choose pretty much whatever they want to do. Yeah. Uh, rewind the clock. That is a recipe for catastrophe mm-hmm <affirmative>. And we learn that the hard way after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Yeah. On the wind side, it really showed us what happens. Yeah. When you have this hodgepodge of, you know, back then in Florida we had 40 different code variants at local jurisdictions that would've made a difference

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Wow.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

In wind performance.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

And what happens when you don't know what to enforce? Right. You know, nothing happens. Yeah. You don't get the benefit of it. Builders don't know what to build, so inspectors don't know what to inspect for, and you get sort of gridlock and nothing happens.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. And

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Event comes along. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

And you

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Get a catastrophe.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. Well, I, I'm glad you mentioned Andrew and, and Florida because I think Florida is almost the poster child for this country of how building codes, especially, you know, for hurricanes California too on the earthquake side, but have really made a substantial impact. And after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, um, building codes fundamentally changed and in subsequent hurricanes that have hit Florida since then, they've shown that they've worked. And it, it really is a, an example of how building codes can make a difference. And I guess the, the question is kind of almost a, a psychological one of like, how have those building codes been perceived by both homeowners and, and maybe even builders that are building new homes in, in Florida? Because we've, we've really seen an influx of people moving to the Florida area as well.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Andrew was such a big deal, and we had insurance solvency issues too, coming after that event mm-hmm <affirmative>. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. The governor put together the Florida Building Commission at the time, and, and their goal was to, to go study what happened Yeah. And put forth a set of recommendations, all of which turned into the building code system that the state has today. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

And

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

So it was met with the, the very classic pushback about, you know, raising costs and things like that. Yeah. But

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

I think

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

The state realized like, we have extreme hurricane risk and we, our state has a peninsula, it sticks out in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. It's that boundary there. Um, it's a target for tropical systems. Yeah. And so they, I, I often kind of refer to their path as pulling the bandaid off. They just decided we had to do something mm-hmm <affirmative>. Now it took the better part of, you know, really all those findings came out in about 90 19 96. Okay.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

So

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

A handful of years after, so in the span of, from 1994 to 1996, we get this recommendation of what to do. Well that didn't take hold across the entire state uniformly until 2002. So it took a while. Wow.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

That's

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

A long time. Get that system. It is, it is. Yeah. So you see the lag. Right. Um, but fast forward, and if you look at a storm like Hurricane Ian, like we were able to actually quantify the benefit of the Florida building code. Uh, some work that we've done with, with you guys at Cotality, looking at mortgage delinquency rates. We had some of the Florida hurricanes in there to Yeah. Show how that good code environment actually keeps people Yeah. In their homes. Yeah. Um, and things like Milton Helene in the last couple of years. Yeah. The, the code's proving it's worth. And, and as we sit today, there's a huge portion of the state that the building code is, is very close to I ibh s's fortified gold standard. So

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

That's great.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Um, it, it's a huge portion of the state. So if you build a new home in most of Florida, you are getting something that is very close to a fortified gold home. And the performance has been fantastic. Wow. And it just took that long for this process to take hold.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Sort of on the, the, the idea of how building codes scale too. Uh, take Hurricane Ian where you had about 150,000 roofs that were damaged, uh, on homes that weren't built to the, the modern Florida code. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Well, all 150,000 are now gonna get reroofed to the new code.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Oh, wow. Yeah. So now

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

You've like really scaled it up and it's this exponential growth. So we talk about you gotta have a good code system and it's gotta be there when the event happens. Yeah. Not only do you get the benefit, but also those structures that get repaired. Yeah. Uh, and rebuilt. You've got that really good system in place.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. I, I'm glad you pointed that out. 'cause that's a really important thought of, uh, you know, built new building code comes into effect. Buildings don't just magically appear at that building code. So anything that's new construction has to be done to that code. Anything that, you know, if there's damage, it will be rebuilt to that code. But that doesn't mean that, you know, houses that have been there, that haven't been damaged, that people aren't doing anything to them, they're still at the code that they were when they were built. So, so that's an important thing. Um, one, one thing that's really interesting and, and I've had, you know, this conversation in a few different situations is the cost of retrofitting, of when does it actually make an impact? And, you know, obviously we've seen these, I'm gonna say success cases in Florida, but there's still this even almost pushback in a lot of places of, well, it's gonna be a huge undertaking to retrofit.

I mean, I look at California and some of the retrofitting that's being done for wildfire right now. Um, things that California went through in the late nineties, early two thousands with earthquake after the Northridge earthquake, and kind of rebuilding to different new building codes for that, that it's a significant investment. And when is there that tipping point that it just makes it seem that yes, this is an investment that's worth it because it it is, you know, not gonna be more than the building costs and it, it really is in the long term it's gonna pay off. But I think the psychological aspect of this, and part of the reason why Florida took so long to fully buy into all this, I think,

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. So, you know, one of the, the challenges, the, the retrofit challenge is one of our, probably is the biggest one, right. We have so many buildings Yeah. That are already there. Uh, yeah. And we, we turn over the building stock at a very slow pace. I mean, it's just what it is. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, so we've seen this, you know, the cost of retrofits, it depends on what you're after. So when we think about something like fortified roof, which is really after the very frequent, frequent, but not the upper end severity kind of events where it can really knock down the loss. It's very affordable from a retrofit standpoint. But if you say you want to go to something that's like, I have a house built in 1972, I wanna retrofit it to fortified gold, that is going to cost money. Um, because you're gonnahave to pull out drywall and look at the structural elements.

But if you say, I wanna go to a fortified roof that's gonna deal with most of the events that I'm gonna see. Mm mm-hmm <affirmative>. That's a pretty marginal uptick. You're looking at somewhere in the single digit percentages to maybe 13% extra cost on the roof. People ask me that with severe storms all the time. Like, you know, how do we deal with this in a retrofit? I was like, well go to a fortified roof and go get a wind rated garage door. That's the two best things you could do. And you get those two chances to make your home stronger. Um, wildfire is an animal where the cost range is much wider. I mean, this is anywhere from, say I have a modern, you know, wildland urban interface, you know, code home. This might just be a weekend of DIY, work around your defensible space and working on your zone zero non-combustible zone, or flip it around.

You might have a, some very serious retrofits like wall cover material that you gotta replace. You might have to deal with windows and you have defensible space. So the spectrum mm-hmm. Of that impact is much bigger. Yeah. Um, but the retrofit problems, one, we, we, we can't ignore. And from a success standpoint, and I'm just looking at it through the lens of the fortified program, because I think it's been a good model for us when you can put things like grants in to go with incentive packages together mm-hmm <affirmative>. That's when you create awareness and Yeah. The want to do it goes way up. So as we sit today, um, even in North Carolina, that's one of the most successful grant programs through the, the North Carolina wind pool and getting fortified roofs on both for sunny day replacements and post-event, um, even Louisiana, which came online in their grant program not that long ago. They're tipping over toward most of those designations now are not driven by the grants.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Wow. They're

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Just the market demand.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Interesting.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. And Alabama, which has been the biggest success story, most of the fortified designations are not grant related anymore. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. They're all driven by the market forces. Yeah. So it's just about awareness and getting people over that kind of mental, mental hump. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Well, and I know, I know you and I are kind of twin souls in this, that that whole awareness of natural de hazard risk is, is really what's driven all of our careers and, and kind of what we've, what we've been focused on for so long. And, and it really is that, you know, believe that you have a risk and understand what you can do at, we say at Cotality is know your risk, accelerate your recovery. So I think it really, that's really at the heart of a lot of the things that, you know, are related to this. Yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. I, I think some of that too is, is having that, it's, it's, I understand my risk and I know there's things I can do about it. Yeah. I think wildfires been the place where it's been the biggest challenge that for the longest time we a little bit ahead in the sand. Hmm. Um, some of that went with our, our fire response policies, even going back all the way to 1920s where we're just trying to put out fires. Yeah. Yeah. So no one said what to do in the suburban wildland urban interface area. Yeah. And we're trying to short circuit what is a multi-generational, um, lack of awareness, not of the hazard mm-hmm <affirmative>. But what to do about it. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're trying to get ahead of that. I I always tell this story, you've probably heard me say this, I grew up in south Louisiana, and so since the time I was like five years old, I mean, everyone talks about what to do when there's a hurricane. Yeah. Bored up my windows, fill the bathtub up with water, all those things mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so from the time I was a little kid, it was already in my head, I could do something about this. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. I know it's

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Bad. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

But there's

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Something I can do. And I think wildfire, we're trying to short circuit all

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Of that.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Um, because we just didn't talk about what to do about the problem.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, my heart instantly goes to earthquakes. And I'll tell you that the people in this, uh, in California that know more about what to do about earthquakes are the kids because they learn it in school and they learn it all the way through and they know how to stay safe during an earthquake and parents have no idea in many cases. So it's, uh, you know, it's, it's really interest that that's Yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

We've seen the exact same thing with

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Mm-hmm

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

<affirmative>. With s severe weather awareness.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's fascinating to see. And I mean, I'm, it warms my heart to see that it has become such an important part of just our, our culture now of understanding natural hazard risk, which is something that, you know, never existed when we were kids, which was not that long ago. <laugh>.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. That's, that's the one thing. Yeah. We've seen exactly that point. Um,

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

In the severe storms environment too. And, and I think that's, we, we've toyed with like, what, how can we even increase our outreach, um, into middle schools, high schools, things

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Like that.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. Um, to on, on all these perils. 'cause they'll take, you know, kids will take that information. One, they're gonna also be the, the consumers of the future. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

And

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

They're already thinking about, Hey, I want something that can take the weather, whatever the hazards I got, and they're, you're gonna look for it.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. No, absolutely. Um, so Ian, I wanna talk a little bit more about modeling retrofits. So I know you, you guys, your team have done a lot with digital twins to model hail specifically. Um, so is this technology being used to model natural hazard risk and verifying code compliance? Or are you just trying to see what the damage could be?

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

So I think that you sort of hit on something. I think there's a future in the code compliance place. Mm mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, right now it's, it's using these kind of tools to simulate a, uh, the built environment, even simulating, you know, socioeconomic behavior elements too that go with it. Um, and it gives you ability to sort of hd cast against real events. So I do think down the road, there's probably some element that you can use these kind of AI systems in the code compliance space mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

But

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

I do think right now, the, the here and now is much about can I do a series of what ifs? Can I, can I take, I'll take wildfire for an example. Can I, can I map a community and then go look at it, say under how we, we look at the prepared neighborhood program with the fuels assessment, we can do this all digitally. Where do I need the most mitigation? Where do I need sort of the, the, the less, um, more ember attack stuff and maybe there's an area where I just need to do fuel treatments and that's it. Hmm mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, that's what I think we can do today. But I do think in the future there, there's probably ways to use this in, in looking at how good are we doing with codes. I think that'd be really important. And it's evaluating our building stock.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Ah, yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Um, that's where we can start to see this in bulk. Okay.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Is,

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Is looking at the building stock, it's properties, um, and can we mimic that in this AI environment, um, to do these what ifs. I think it tells us so much about, Hey, if we just put X amount of mitigation here, maybe focused our efforts here and our dollars here, we can get this the biggest return per the peril. Um, and I think that's really important. I think you're gonna see that really start to crank up, um, this type of technology and how we look at it. It's moving really, really fast. Um, even to the point, can you start to model how humans might even behave in those environments when you introduce those resilience measures?

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. It, it's crazy. I mean, AI is no longer the future. It is the now and, and we are, it is, it is. It's everywhere in everything that we do. And I guess, and I think you touched on it too, that it's not just the, the modeling, but it's the, the human BA behavior and everything, and really just understanding like, the new situation of the, the world. And I guess with that, is there a way for AI to maybe help insurers offer more granular pricing, different different opportunities, um, in their pricing schemes by using AI to have better understanding of data?

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

So, so I think it can take us to the place where as we collect more information about structures, we're gonna be able to use it to craft a lot more precision. You can almost draw the auto parallel. Oh, Uhhuh. <affirmative>. Um, and I think that's where we have to go is to get more data, but can, can we synthetically replace some of those or, or fill in the gaps with AI tools? I, I'm really excited about sort of the broad scale. Can we look at what are the right nudge factors that will get people to act, whether that's in, in the insurance pricing space mm-hmm <affirmative>. Whether that's grant programs, like how much is too much, how much is too little? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. What's the sweet spot? You know, the not too hot, not too cold sort of concept in what's gonna make the biggest difference, where and what factors will move people Yeah. The direction we need to go, which is to Yeah. Which is into more resilient materials, um, better code environments, all of it.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I love the car example because I mean, you hear it all the time. You know, you can put a little thing on your dash that says how far you're driving your car or proves you're a good car, good driver, and it'll get you a discount on your insurance. I mean, I think people are motivated by saving money and, you know, ultimately if we can somehow show that there's mitigation being taken on a property that will ultimately protect your home and save you, you know, from a loss happening, then that would be fantastic to get even further in that direction.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. I th I think that's, you know, what these tools in the immediate near term are absolutely gonna contribute to. And then the ne the, the back end of that is, you know, how much can we use a lot of the machine vision technology to bring in all that additionaldata? How good can we get? Still got, you know, challenges out there with seeing every little aspect. But I think when you start to merge aerial imagery, ground-based things, um, even I think about multi spectrum, I think about hail really. Um, I think infrared imagery could even look at damage diagnosis. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Uh,

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Roof condition environments, um, and then bring in the machine vision tools Yeah. To automate that over huge areas. Now you start to bring in this pile of data that's gonna let you slice and dice the risk picture mm-hmm <affirmative>. In a far more precision way mm-hmm

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

<affirmative>.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

And you're gonna figure out all these elements of like, what is this stuff? What do we need to do here? And what's the actual effective path? Like, we wanna even go back in our, our sort of digital twin, um, behavioral model set up and test the fortified success storyand see if it can actually predict how we arrived. Where we are at Alabama today with, with nearly what is about, you know, almost one fourth, the single family homes and mobile and Baldwin counties or fortified homes. Um, how do we, you know, can we look at it that from a hind cast and so that, oh, this system, these AI tools can actually take us to models that could be successful for us.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Uh, Ian, you are, you're speaking my language and, and really everything you've just said is, is really our strategy of what is one of the things driving us here at Cotality as well. Um, through our partnership with Vexcel imagery, one of the, you know, leading aerial imagery providers, we are actually focused on what we are calling cognitive imagery, which is aerial imagery powered by AI and using our core AI to amplify our hazard risk scores by extracting data attributes from defensible space to enhance our wildfire mitigation score, enhancing roof intelligence information to enhance our hail risk scores. Um, and then using aerial imagery to pull out all these data attributes to enhance our residential and commercial prefill solutions as well too. So, like one of the big things that is our strategy for totality in, in the next, you know, the, the now of, of, of, of what we're really focused on and really plays into kind of what you are saying.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. So, so I, you know, I truly think that is, you know, it's, it's the direction we have to go mm-hmm <affirmative>. Because we simply have to get more information Yeah. On our structures. I, I think unfortunately in the broader insurance space, we, we looked at, especially residential construction, we thought it was all cookie cutter. Right. But it's just that we didn't have enough data to start breaking things apart

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Mm-hmm

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

<affirmative>. And the more data that everyone has access to on these buildings, the more ibh s's work matters. We look so much at things like performance of individual components, and then we, our world is look at the components, but also bring it back to the system. So when you have all this information, you can start to actually tie a lot of that experimental work and can short circuit things like the need for long-term loss histories. Yeah. We can short circuit all that with more data, better understanding, and how to integrate things like experimental testing, post-event data, all to show the same result that you may think you have to wait a while. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

And

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

I think this is super important when we start looking at emerging emerging materials. Sure.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Our building space. Yeah. Yeah. And,

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

And making sure we're not afraid of them as they start to innovate. I think about some of the new 3D printed concrete technologies. Oh, incredible. Yeah. Uh, we just had at IBHS, some folks from the composites industry. Talk to us about emerging materials there and how they're used in both residential and commercial construction. Um, I think all this matters, this whole system of, of information Yeah. Is such a, a, a, so critical to dealing with the, the problems that we're facing.

Allie Barefoot:

It's that time again, Cotality just dropped new numbers about what's happening in the housing market. Here's what you need to know. For many borrowers, adjustable rate mortgages or a's are less a preference and more necessity in an uncertain global economy. Policymakers have little incentive to adjust rates. But ality data shows buyers have already begun turning to a's for savings. To give you an idea of how much difference interest rates can make, ality found that on a $1 million mortgage, which is not uncommon in high cost of living areas, buyers can save $500 per month if they have an adjustable rate rather than a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. Now with fed interest rates holding steady for the next quarter, finding savings is all the more important for many a's aren't just a discount.It's the only way to qualify To learn more about how the property market is shifting, visit cotality.com/insights. There's also a link in the show notes, and that's a sip. See you next time.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Well, Ian, I feel like you and I could talk for six hours on this topic and, and just keep going. So, um, but I think one thing I definitely do wanna get to, and I, I generally like to end these podcasts, that if you could look into your crystal ball, um, what would you see? But I think specifically, I mean, we've talked about Alabama, you've talked about, uh, Florida, we've talked a little bit about California too. If you had to say where you think the next place that could adopt codes to really make a profound impact, what would your crystal ball say?

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah, and this one I think we can even do in the, in the decade kind of time span. It, it's the severe convective storm problem. Mm

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

So take the middle of the United States or the areas east of the Rockies, you know, we've made such huge progress on the hurricane prone coast, both in adoption Yeah. And the provisions that go into those locations, because we've got a good wind design standard in the middle of the country. We have issues with adoption. We're just not even using the codes we have. And the question mark is, is the design level proper? And we've already started to figure out how to put tornado based design into our critical facilities into code.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Interesting. So

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

The, the severe convective storm bu you know, bucket incorporates one of my personal goals. It, how do we get hail provisions into our building codes?

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

You know, hails cost us 70% of those severe convective storm losses every single year.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

That's huge. We

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Gotta do something. Yeah.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

And

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

I also do think we can do things about extreme wind events, tornadoes. We can do the same mitigations we know that are gonna work, um, on the coast in the hurricane wind environment are the exact same ones we're gonna do for, for tornadoes. It's just getting over the hump that these events are not mile wide bulldozers, even the extreme ones. We have a lot we can do on the extreme side, and there's a lot we can do in the hail, which is that bulk sort of middle of the distribution of loss. Um, and that's my, that, I think that's more my wishlist. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And crystal ball. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I think we can do it. There is the sociological piece of getting people to realize there are things we can do. Um, and I do have a hope that things like grant programs and coupling those with incentives, they all have to go together to generate the awareness. And then we are, we know once it starts becoming the norm and we get over that early adopter hump, this can hit get on its down and get on its skates and get going. Um, I think we've shown that that can work. So, um, the severe storm problem is one that, that from the insurance standpoint, you know, carriers, we don't, we don't have a lot of risk transfer products for Mm

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Mm-hmm

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

<affirmative>. Um, it is just straight up repetitive dollars Yeah. In aggregate that just keeps piling up. And I do believe as we sit today, that that's one of the affordability challenges that we do face because it's just there all the time. So that's my crystal ball. I'm hopingwe can tackle this. We're starting to gain all that knowledge for severe convective storms, and I think we can go at it.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Well, I, I really hope you get your wishlist, Ian. And I feel like we're, we're moving in the right direction with awareness and people becoming more aware of natural hazard events. And I think the insurance industry is definitely playing their, their role here. And, and thank you to the IBHS and the work that you do. So, Ian, thank you so much for joining me today on Beyond the Buildings by Cotality.

Dr. Ian Giammanco:

Yeah. Thanks for having me. And yeah, we, we could sit here and talk for hours and hours on this.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah. And thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed our latest episode. Please remember to leave us a review and let us know your thoughts and subscribe wherever you get your podcast to be notified when new episodes are released. And thanks to the team for helping bring this podcast to life producer Jessi Devenyns, editor and sound engineer Romie Aroman, our Facts guru, Allie Barefoot and social media duo, Sarah Buck and Makaila Brooks. Tune in next time for another conversation that illuminates the ideas that will define the future.

Allie Barefoot:

You still there? Well, thanks for sticking around. Are you curious to learn more about our guest today? Dr. Ian Giammanco is a managing director for standards and data analytics and a lead research meteorologist at the IBHS Research Center in Richburg, South Carolina. Dr. Giammanco holds a BS in atmospheric science from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and an MS and PhD from Texas Tech University and Atmospheric Science and Wind Science and Engineering respectively. Dr. Giammanco's responsibilities at IBHS include developing the new IBHS standards and data analytics team, and is serving as a lead research meteorologist, helping guide applied research from 2019 to 2022. Dr. Giammanco helped build and lead the IBHS product development team. He provides leadership in disaster data analytics, science communication, applied meteorology research and instrumentation design and data collection.

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