Windstorm insurance covers damage from wind, including hurricane and tropical-storm wind, to a home or building. In most of the country, wind coverage is built into a standard homeowners policy. On the coast, in Alabama's Baldwin and Mobile counties or Georgia's coastal counties, for example, a standard homeowners policy often excludes windstorm, and coverage moves to a separate wind policy instead.
Why would windstorm be excluded from a homeowners policy?
Insurers treat coastal areas as high hurricane and wind risk. Rather than price that risk into every homeowners policy, many carriers carve windstorm out entirely on the coast and leave it to a specialized wind market, or, where the private market will not write it, to a state wind pool. In Alabama, that is the Alabama Insurance Underwriting Association (AIUA), the state's insurer of last resort for coastal wind and hail.
What does a windstorm policy actually pay for?
A windstorm policy covers wind and hail damage to the structure: a torn-off roof, blown-in windows, wind-driven debris damage. It does not cover flood, storm surge, or rising water; those perils always need a separate flood policy, no matter how good the wind coverage is.
For example, a hurricane can damage a coastal home two different ways in one storm: wind strips the roof (a windstorm claim) and storm surge floods the ground floor (a flood claim). Those are two different policies with two different deductibles, and a gap in either one is uncovered no matter how strong the other coverage is.
How is a windstorm deductible different from a standard deductible?
Coastal windstorm and hurricane deductibles are often a percentage of the home's insured value (commonly 2% to 5%) rather than a flat dollar amount. See named storm deductible for how that is calculated.
A free coverage review can confirm whether a homeowners policy includes or excludes windstorm, and whether a separate wind policy is needed.