Florida OIR-B1-1802 Wind Mitigation Form: Garage Door Section Explained

If you live in Broward County and you have ever asked your insurance agent how to lower your windstorm premium, the answer almost always includes a single form: OIR-B1-1802. This is one of the most under-explained documents in Florida real estate, and the garage door section is one of the most under-claimed line items on it.

This guide explains what the form is, how the garage door fits in, what documentation we provide our customers so they can claim it, and what realistic discount amounts look like for Broward County homes.

What OIR-B1-1802 Actually Is

OIR-B1-1802 is the official Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection Form published by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. It was developed so that wind-mitigation inspections done by different inspectors would produce consistent, comparable results — before the standardized form existed, each insurer used its own format and carriers could (and did) reject inspections that were not in their preferred layout.

The form is filled out by a licensed inspector (general contractor, building inspector, professional engineer, or a Florida-certified wind mitigation inspector) after they walk the home and document the relevant wind-mitigation features. The completed form goes to your insurance carrier, which then applies whatever discount schedule it uses for the documented features.

OIR-B1-1802 has seven main sections:

1. Building Code — when the home was built and what code applied.
2. Roof Covering — type of roofing and code compliance.
3. Roof Deck Attachment — how the roof deck is nailed to the trusses.
4. Roof to Wall Attachment — clips, single wraps, double wraps, or toe nails.
5. Roof Geometry — hip, flat, gable, or other.
6. Secondary Water Resistance (SWR) — whether the roof underlayment provides SWR.
7. Opening Protection — this is where the garage door lives.

The Garage Door Lives in Section 6 (Opening Protection)

Section 6 asks the inspector to characterize the wind-borne debris impact protection across all openings on the home. The choices are:

• A (Hurricane Protection) — all openings (windows, entry doors, garage doors, skylights) are protected to large-missile impact (Level A) per Florida Building Code 1626.
• B (Basic Protection) — all openings are protected to at least basic impact (Level B).
• C (Some Protected) — some openings are protected, others are not.
• N (None) — no openings are protected.
• X (Not Verified) — inspector could not verify.

The garage door is one of the largest openings on most South Florida homes, often by a wide margin. If your garage door is not impact-rated, you almost certainly cannot check Box A regardless of how your windows and entry doors are protected — the unprotected garage door drops you to Box C at best. That is exactly why upgrading the garage door to an HVHZ-rated, NOA-documented product is often the single highest-leverage move a Broward homeowner can make to improve their wind mitigation score.

What the Inspector Needs to See

This is where most homeowners lose the credit even though they paid for a wind-rated door. The inspector cannot just look at the door and declare it impact-rated — they need documentation. In practice, that means one or more of the following:

• The NOA / Florida Product Approval label on the door itself — usually a sticker on the inside face of one of the panels, listing the manufacturer, model, NOA / FPA number, and rating.
• The original installation paperwork — invoice or contract listing the door model, plus the manufacturer's product approval documentation supplied with the install.
• The Broward County permit final-inspection record — this typically references the product approval used at the time of permit.
• Photographs of the inside label — taken at inspection if the label is intact but hard to access.

If none of those exist — no label, no paperwork, no permit record — the inspector is unlikely to credit the door, and you will not get the discount even if the door is genuinely a wind-rated product.

Real Example: A Sunrise Homeowner Walking Through It

Let us walk through a realistic scenario. A homeowner in 33351 (Sunrise) has a 2,200 sq ft single-family home built in 1992. The current insurance situation:

• Annual HO-3 policy: $4,200, of which roughly $2,800 is the windstorm portion.
• Existing wind mitigation inspection on file from 2018, claiming Box C (Some Protected) for openings — impact windows installed in 2016, but original 1992 garage door with no documentation.

The homeowner calls us. We inspect: the original 1992 door is not wind-rated, the label is gone (if there ever was one), and the door is at end of life anyway. We quote and install a current Wayne Dalton or Clopay HVHZ-listed door with a current NOA, pull the Broward County permit, and provide the homeowner with a full documentation package: NOA paperwork, permit number, final inspection record, manufacturer warranty, paid invoice.

The homeowner schedules a new wind mitigation inspection. The inspector documents the new garage door, sees the NOA label, and now all openings are Level A impact-protected — the form moves from Box C to Box A. The carrier re-rates the windstorm portion using the Box A discount schedule. In a common Broward scenario, the windstorm premium drops about 18%, or roughly $500 per year. The garage door install paid for itself in about 4–6 years on insurance savings alone, plus the homeowner now has a quieter, safer, NOA-documented door that improves resale value.

Important caveat: we are describing a common pattern, not a guaranteed outcome. Actual discounts depend on the carrier, the rest of the wind mitigation features documented, the specific policy, and the home. We never quote a specific dollar savings number to a customer up front — we point them to their insurance agent for the actual carrier math.

What Documentation We Provide on Every Install

Because so much of the OIR-B1-1802 credit depends on documentation, we hand every customer a completion folder. Inside the folder:

• Paid invoice listing the door model and product line.
• Broward County permit number and final-inspection record.
• Florida Product Approval or Miami-Dade NOA documentation for the specific product.
• Photographs of the inside label / sticker as installed.
• Manufacturer warranty paperwork.
• Our contractor license number (Broward CC# 21-GD-22352-X) and contact information.

Keep this folder. Hand it to the wind mitigation inspector at the next inspection. Keep a digital copy too — this is exactly the kind of paperwork that vanishes during a hurricane.

When Should You Schedule a Re-Inspection?

The OIR-B1-1802 form is valid for five years from inspection date for insurance discount purposes. After five years, your carrier may require a new inspection.

Beyond that, the practical answer is: re-inspect whenever you make a major opening upgrade. If you replace your garage door, impact windows, or front entry door, the new install can move you up a discount tier and a fresh inspection captures it. Wind mitigation inspections typically run $75–$150 in Broward County — trivial compared to the discount.

Common Mistakes That Cost Broward Homeowners the Credit

Over years of conversations with Broward homeowners trying to claim or improve their OIR-B1-1802 score, the same handful of mistakes come up over and over. Avoid these and you give yourself the best shot at the full openings credit.

• Throwing away the install paperwork. This is the most common failure mode. Homeowner installs a wind-rated door, never looks at the paperwork again, and a decade later cannot prove what was installed. Keep the folder. Scan it. Email a copy to yourself so it lives in cloud storage.
• Painting over the inside label. Some homeowners paint the interior of the garage and inadvertently paint over the manufacturer NOA sticker. Once that label is gone, the inspector has nothing to work with. Mask the label area before painting, or photograph it first.
• Mixing hurricane-rated and non-rated openings. If your home has impact windows and an impact-rated entry door but a 1990s un-rated garage door, you drop from Box A (all openings protected) to Box C (some protected). The credit hit is larger than the dollar cost of upgrading the one weak opening.
• Using an unlicensed installer. Some Broward door installs are done by handymen or unlicensed crews working cash off the books. No permit, no inspection record, no NOA paperwork — no insurance credit, even if the product itself is technically wind-rated.
• Letting the wind mitigation inspector "estimate" the door type. If the inspector cannot positively identify the door, the credit gets denied or downgraded. Provide documentation up front; do not make the inspector guess.
• Assuming the previous owner left documentation behind. When you buy a Broward home, ask explicitly during inspection for any garage door, window, or opening paperwork. It is rare for sellers to volunteer it. If it is missing, that is a known cost of ownership going forward.

How the Garage Door Section Interacts With the Rest of the Form

One nuance that surprises most homeowners: the openings score is binary at the highest level. Either all your openings are protected (Box A) or some are unprotected (Box C and below). There is no partial credit for "most openings are great." Carriers care about Box A vs everything-else, because a single unprotected opening is a single failure point during a Cat 4 storm.

That math has a specific implication for the garage door. On a typical Broward single-family home, the garage door represents roughly 30–60% of the total opening surface area. If everything else is impact-rated but the garage door is not, you are stuck at Box C even though only one opening is the problem. Conversely, upgrading the garage door alone, when everything else is already rated, can jump you from Box C to Box A in a single install and unlock the full openings discount.

That asymmetric leverage is why we tell so many Broward customers: if you have already upgraded your windows and entry doors, the garage door is the single highest-ROI insurance-driven improvement left on the table. The reverse is also true: upgrading the garage door first and leaving 1990s windows in place still gets you stuck at Box C until the windows are addressed. Sequence matters.

Official Resources

• Florida Office of Insurance Regulation — the issuing body for OIR-B1-1802.
• FLOIR Wind Mitigation Resources — consumer-side info on wind mitigation.
• Florida Product Approval search — look up your door's product approval.
• Miami-Dade NOA database — live HVHZ product approval database.
• Garage Door Kingdom NOA Lookup Tool — our free educational reference.