Does the evaluator fee earn the tax credit?

No, and it is the mistake that most often inflates a homeowner estimate. Revenue Information Bulletin 25-020 lists FORTIFIED home evaluator fees, permit fees, inspection fees, and general waste disposal such as dumpsters as ineligible, and the statute itself excludes permit, inspection, and other similar costs. The fee is still a real cost of the project, so it stays in the cost stack on this page. What the credit is worth is a question for the Department of Revenue bulletin, not for this site.

Is the benchmark table law right now?

No. The table is a benchmark the Louisiana Department of Insurance has published, and the regulation that would make published rates mandatory is still proposed. The LDI summary report dated July 13, 2026 announces intent to submit Regulation 136 for final publication in the August 2026 Louisiana Register, subject to legislative oversight, and the regulation takes effect only on that publication. If it is published, its rates would apply to policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2027. What is law today is La. R.S. 22:1483, which requires an actuarially justified discount right now and does not wait on the regulation.

Why does the widget only show 16 to 29 percent when the table goes to 49?

Because the widget prices the FORTIFIED Roof level, and 49 percent is the South-region Gold cell. Gold adds work to walls, openings, garage doors, and an engineered load path, and no published Louisiana cost delta for Silver or Gold survived checking, so this page will not price what it cannot cost. The 16 to 29 percent band is the FORTIFIED Roof row read across all three regions. Your own cell is in the nine-row table, and it depends on a designation level and a region the widget does not ask you for.

Why does this calculator make me type in my own wind portion?

Because no citable figure exists for a typical wind or hurricane share of a Louisiana homeowners premium, and inventing one would quietly decide your answer for you. The share is printed on your declarations page. One wrinkle worth knowing: La. R.S. 22:1483 applies the credit or discount only to policies that provide wind coverage, and it may apply to the portion of the premium for wind coverage or to the total premium if the insurer does not separate out wind premium in its rate filing, so ask your agent which base your carrier uses.

Why does the calculator stop at FORTIFIED Roof instead of Silver or Gold?

Because no published cost delta for Silver or Gold in Louisiana survived checking. Silver and Gold add work to walls, openings, garage doors, and in the case of Gold an engineered load path, and the only figures available are for the roof level. The discount side is better documented: LDI has published benchmarks for all three levels, so the full nine-cell table sits on this page even though the cost side stays at Roof.

Why does the calculator not subtract a grant or a tax credit?

Because program amounts and eligibility change, and a price with a stale award subtracted from it is worse than no price at all. This page costs the job on its own terms. A Louisiana Fortify Homes Program grant may be offered when a round is open, and you may qualify for the state income tax credit, and either one would reduce what you pay, but the current terms live with the agencies: ldi.la.gov/fortifyhomes for the grant, and Revenue Information Bulletin 25-020 for the credit. One interaction is worth knowing before you plan: La. R.S. 47:6044 bars a taxpayer who receives a Fortify Homes grant from also taking the credit, and the bulletin routes grant recipients toward the voluntary construction code retrofitting deduction instead. Have a Louisiana tax preparer confirm which lane a grant-funded project belongs in.

Louisiana FORTIFIED roof cost calculator

A FORTIFIED Roof upgrade in Louisiana is best read as two numbers. On the cost side, a full replacement on a 2,000 square foot roof runs roughly $7,500 to $20,000 at contractor-published Louisiana rates, and the FORTIFIED layer adds $700 to $1,700 in features plus $300 to $600 for the independent evaluation. On the return side, the designation earns a discount every year it stays current, applied to the wind or hurricane portion of your premium or to the total premium where your carrier does not price wind separately: published Louisiana filings today mostly run 15 to 30 percent, and LDI has published a benchmark table running 16 to 49 percent, from the lowest FORTIFIED Roof cell to the highest Gold cell, that a still-pending Regulation 136 would make mandatory for policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2027. This page prices the FORTIFIED Roof level only, so its widget stays inside the 16 to 29 percent Roof row. Estimates only, dated 2026-07-27. Your policy will vary.

What this calculator deliberately leaves out is program money. A Louisiana Fortify Homes Program grant may be offered when a round is open, and you may qualify for the state income tax credit for FORTIFIED roof work (Department of Revenue bulletin). Either would reduce what you actually pay. Neither is subtracted here, because amounts and eligibility change and the agencies own those numbers. Price the job on its own economics, then check the agency pages for what is on offer.

This page is an estimate, not a quote and not a promise. Every figure carries its publisher and date in the methodology section. Nothing here tells you what your insurer will pay you or charge you.

Run your own roof

JavaScript is off, so the interactive fields below will not calculate. The cost side is printed in full anyway: the precomputed cost table carries base replacement, the FORTIFIED layer, and the project total for common roof sizes, and the discount table below it prices common wind-portion amounts at both bands, from the same sources and the same math. Two outputs are missing here, because both need a figure only you have: the share of your premium priced for wind, and your payback year. Payback is the FORTIFIED layer divided by the annual discount, so you can take it off the two tables by hand.

Roof size Measured in

A roof's area is larger than the home's footprint, because pitch stretches it. A 2,000 square foot single-story house with a moderate pitch carries noticeably more than 2,000 square feet of roof. This field accepts 500 to 12,000 square feet (five to 120 squares); outside that range a per-square-foot rate stops describing a house, so the widget asks again instead of answering. Quick picks, in roof square feet:

Wind or hurricane portion of your annual premium

This field starts blank on purpose. No publishable figure exists for a typical wind share of a Louisiana premium, so this page will not guess yours. Your declarations page has it. If your carrier does not break wind premium out separately, the statute allows the discount to run against your total premium, in which case enter your total premium here and read the result that way.

Current total annual homeowners premium (optional, for your own reference)

Optional. Fill both premium fields and the result below shows what share of your bill is priced for wind. That share is yours alone: this page does not publish a typical one, because no citable figure for a typical Louisiana wind share exists.

Your estimate, as of 2026-07-27

Base roof replacement: $7,500 to $20,000. Architectural asphalt shingles installed, at contractor-published Louisiana rates.
FORTIFIED upgrade layer, shown separately: $1,000 to $2,300. Added features at $700 to $1,700 (an IBHS sample from Alabama, undated), plus the independent evaluation at $300 to $600.
Estimated project total: $8,500 to $22,300. Base replacement plus the FORTIFIED layer. Program money is not netted out of this figure: see the note under the fields.
Your own wind share of premium: Enter both premium fields above. Your figure, off your own declarations page, not a Louisiana average. There is no publishable average.
Annual insurance discount, at today's published band: Enter your wind portion above. Range only. Read your own policy, and confirm with your carrier.
Annual insurance discount, at the published LDI benchmark (not yet mandatory): Enter your wind portion above. A benchmark LDI publishes, not a rate any carrier owes you today. Regulation 136, which would make published rates mandatory for policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2027, is still pending final publication.
Payback on the upgrade layer: Enter your wind portion above. The FORTIFIED layer divided by the annual discount band above. Any grant or credit you end up receiving shortens this; none is assumed.

Estimate only. Not a quote, not tax advice, and not insurance advice. No amount here is a promise of what any insurer will apply to your premium or what any contractor will bid. Your policy, your parish, your carrier's filed schedule, and your roof all move the answer.

The cost side, precomputed

Same math as the fields above, printed for common roof sizes so the numbers exist whether or not anything runs in your browser. Base replacement uses the published $3.75 to $10.00 per square foot installed rate for architectural asphalt shingles, a contractor-published marketing figure rather than survey data. The FORTIFIED layer is flat across sizes because the sources publish it that way.

Estimated FORTIFIED roof cost by roof size, Louisiana, as of 2026-07-27
Roof size	Base replacement	FORTIFIED layer	Project total
1,500 sq ft	$5,600 to $15,000	$1,000 to $2,300	$6,600 to $17,300
1,750 sq ft	$6,600 to $17,500	$1,000 to $2,300	$7,600 to $19,800
2,000 sq ft	$7,500 to $20,000	$1,000 to $2,300	$8,500 to $22,300
2,500 sq ft	$9,400 to $25,000	$1,000 to $2,300	$10,400 to $27,300
3,000 sq ft	$11,300 to $30,000	$1,000 to $2,300	$12,300 to $32,300

The middle column is the one payback runs on: the FORTIFIED layer, the part of the bill the designation is responsible for. Divide it by a figure from the discount table below and you have a payback year without needing the widget.

These are what the work costs, before any program money. A Louisiana Fortify Homes Program grant may be offered when a round is open, and you may qualify for the state income tax credit, and either would bring your own outlay below the totals above. This table does not try to guess by how much. Amounts and eligibility change, so the current terms sit with LDI for the grant and the Department of Revenue bulletin for the credit. One thing worth knowing while you read a bid: a contractor's total is not all qualified expense, since permits, inspections, dumpsters, and the evaluator fee are excluded from the credit, so ask for the FORTIFIED features as separate line items.

A cross-check from a different publisher, kept separate rather than blended: Daigle Roofing's 2025 Louisiana guide puts an asphalt replacement on a medium home of 1,500 to 2,500 square feet at $8,000 to $15,000, and removal and disposal at $1 to $2 per square foot. Southern Home Improvement's own worked bands, from the same page as the per-square-foot rate above, read $6,800 to $13,800 at 1,500 square feet, $9,500 to $18,500 at 2,000, and $12,500 to $23,500 at 2,500. Both are contractor marketing, and they disagree with each other by thousands, which is the most useful thing about showing them.

The insurance side, precomputed

What a designation returns per year, in dollars, across a set of wind-portion amounts. Find the row nearest the wind or hurricane figure on your declarations page. These are ranges applied to a number you supply, not a projection of what your carrier will do.

Estimated annual insurance discount in dollars by wind portion of premium, FORTIFIED Roof level
Wind portion of premium	Today, 15 to 30 percent	LDI benchmark, North, 16 percent	LDI benchmark, Central, 27 percent	LDI benchmark, South, 29 percent
$500 per year	$75 to $150	$80	$135	$145
$750 per year	$113 to $225	$120	$203	$218
$1,000 per year	$150 to $300	$160	$270	$290
$1,500 per year	$225 to $450	$240	$405	$435
$2,000 per year	$300 to $600	$320	$540	$580
$3,000 per year	$450 to $900	$480	$810	$870

The middle column is where most filed Louisiana schedules sit, per Insurance Journal. The real spread is wider: the Department of Insurance Act 533 report on filed FORTIFIED discounts shows homeowners programs from under 5 percent at some carriers to about 40 percent at others, and the report notes those FORTIFIED Roof discounts are filed for the Roof designation specifically. So treat the middle column as the middle of a market, not a floor. The mechanics of asking your carrier for it are in the insurance savings guide.

The published benchmark table, all nine cells

The calculator above prices the FORTIFIED Roof level only, because no published Louisiana cost delta for Silver or Gold survived checking. The discount side is better documented, so here is the whole table as reported, on the hurricane portion of premium. Read it as a benchmark the Department of Insurance has published, not as a rate any carrier owes you today. The regulation that would make published rates mandatory, Regulation 136, is still proposed: it takes effect only on final publication in the Louisiana Register, which the department intends for the August 2026 edition, and would then reach policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2027.

Published LDI FORTIFIED discount benchmarks by region and designation level, which a pending regulation would make mandatory
Region	FORTIFIED Roof	Silver	Gold
North Louisiana	16 percent	20 percent	24 percent
Central Louisiana	27 percent	35 percent	42 percent
South Louisiana	29 percent	43 percent	49 percent

What the levels involve, requirement by requirement, is in the standard guide. This page reports the nine cells as published and does not describe how they were modeled, because no source it can cite sets out that methodology.

The calculator does not ask which region you are in, for two reasons. The regulation assigns parishes to regions in its own text and no published parish-to-region map survived checking, so the widget would be guessing on your behalf. And the amended rule no longer fixes any percentage in its text: per the LDI summary report of July 13, 2026, amendments to Sections 20909, 20913, and 20915 removed the twenty to thirty percent range requirement and instead require discounts based on the rates the Department of Insurance publishes on its own website. Those published rates are the table above, and the department can revise them without new rulemaking. So the widget reads the FORTIFIED Roof row as a band across all three regions, 16 to 29 percent, and the table above is where you find your own cell.

The three money layers

Insurance discounts, permanent. Louisiana law (La. R.S. 22:1483) is in force today and requires insurers to give an actuarially justified premium reduction for FORTIFIED homes. Under the statute the premium credit or discount applies only to policies that provide wind coverage, and it may apply to the portion of the premium for wind coverage or to the total premium if the insurer does not separate out the premium for wind coverage in the rate filing. The statute mandates the reduction but not its size, so each insurer files its own schedule. Published Louisiana discounts today mostly run 15 to 30 percent, with some insurers higher. LDI Regulation 136 is proposed, not adopted. The LDI summary report of July 13, 2026 announces intent to submit it to the Office of the State Register for final publication in the August 2026 Louisiana Register, subject to legislative oversight, and the regulation takes effect only on that publication. Its text no longer fixes any percentage: amendments answering carrier comments removed the twenty to thirty percent range requirement and instead tie mandatory discounts to the rates LDI publishes on its own website. The benchmark table LDI has published runs 16 to 49 percent on the hurricane portion of premium by region and designation level, and the regulation, once effective, would make published rates mandatory for policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2027.
State tax credit, no round to wait for. Louisiana has a state income tax credit for qualified FORTIFIED roof expenses (La. R.S. 47:6044), and you may qualify for it. It is nonrefundable, it has its own rules about which costs count, and the Department of Revenue sets and updates the terms. Terms and amounts come from the Department of Revenue bulletin on FORTIFIED incentives.
Fortify Homes grant, when a round is open. The Louisiana Fortify Homes Program, run by the Louisiana Department of Insurance, may offer a grant toward FORTIFIED roof work. It runs in rounds, and each round sets its own registration window, eligible-parish list and terms, so whether a round is open and whether your address qualifies are questions only LDI can answer. Start at ldi.la.gov/fortifyhomes, and get told when a round opens through the LDI alert list.

Program amounts and eligibility change, so this site does not print them. Check ldi.la.gov/fortifyhomes and the Department of Revenue bulletin for what is current before planning a project around either one. Your policy and tax situation vary; this is not tax or insurance advice.

How this estimate is built

Base replacement is roof square feet multiplied by the published per-square-foot installed rate for architectural asphalt shingles, rounded to the nearest $100. Entries below 500 or above 12,000 square feet get a prompt instead of an estimate, because that rate multiplied by a typo produces a number that looks calculated and means nothing.
The FORTIFIED layer is the published added-feature cost plus the published evaluator fee, added on top rather than folded in, so you can see what the designation itself costs.
The project total is the base replacement plus the FORTIFIED layer. No grant and no tax credit is subtracted from it, at any step.
The annual discount is your entered wind or hurricane portion multiplied by the published band, then again by the published LDI benchmark band for the FORTIFIED Roof level across all three regions. Always a range, never a single number. A wind entry small enough to produce less than $1 a year gets a plain statement to that effect rather than a rounded $0.
Payback divides the FORTIFIED layer by the annual discount band. Longest payback pairs the highest cost with the smallest discount, shortest pairs the lowest cost with the largest. Past 50 years the page stops printing a figure, because at that point the number describes the entry rather than the roof.

What this page deliberately does not do: subtract program money from a price, guess a typical wind share of premium, map your parish to a region under the pending regulation, blend contractor marketing figures into an average that looks like data, or state a single number for anything. Each of those would make the output prettier and less true.

Every source, with its date

Sources behind every figure on this page
Source	Date	What kind	What it supports here
Louisiana Department of Revenue, Revenue Information Bulletin 25-020, FORTIFIED homes and related incentives	Revised 2026-03-19	Primary, state agency	The tax credit itself: what it is, which costs qualify, and which do not. This page publishes none of the amounts or dates in the bulletin, because the Department of Revenue owns those and updates them. Read it there.
La. R.S. 47:6044, enacted by Act 404 of the 2025 Regular Session	2025, verified 2026-07-27	Primary, statute	The statutory definition of qualified expenses, the exclusion of permit and inspection costs, and the bar on claiming the credit after receiving a Fortify Homes grant.
La. R.S. 22:1483, the Louisiana Fortified Roof Premium Discount Act	Verified 2026-07-27	Primary, statute	The mandatory discount itself, and the rule that it may apply to the wind portion of premium or to the total premium where the insurer does not separate wind premium in its rate filing.
Louisiana Department of Insurance, Summary Report, Regulation 136	2026-07-13	Primary, rulemaking record	The status of Regulation 136: proposed rather than adopted, effective only on final publication, which LDI intends for the August 2026 Louisiana Register. Also the amendment that removed the twenty to thirty percent range from Sections 20909, 20913, and 20915 and tied mandatory discounts to the rates LDI publishes on its website instead.
Insurance Journal, Louisiana regulation sets mandatory discounts for fortified homes	2026-03-10	Trade press	The nine-tier benchmark table by region and designation level, and the observation that discounts filed today mostly run 15 to 30 percent.
Louisiana Department of Insurance, Act 533 report on filed FORTIFIED discounts	Data as of 2025-07-01	Primary, filed-rate record	The spread of discounts carriers have actually filed for Louisiana homeowners programs, which runs wider than the 15 to 30 percent middle.
IBHS, Alabama FORTIFIED Roof Endorsement	Undated page, verified 2026-07-27	Institute figures, ALABAMA sample	The $700 to $1,700 added cost of the FORTIFIED features and the $300 to $600 evaluator fee, which the calculator uses, and the separate roughly $1,000 to $3,000 headline estimate quoted beside them. The figures come from Xactimate estimates for Alabama locations, not Louisiana.
Southern Home Improvement, roof replacement cost in Louisiana	Verified 2026-07-27	CONTRACTOR-PUBLISHED MARKETING, not survey data	The $3.75 to $10.00 per square foot installed rate for architectural asphalt shingles, which drives every base replacement figure on this page and is the same rate the replacement, installation, and cost-guide pages publish.
Daigle Roofing and Construction, 2025 roof replacement cost guide for Louisiana homes	2025 guide, verified live 2026-07-27	CONTRACTOR-PUBLISHED MARKETING, not survey data	A second opinion on the same market: $8,000 to $15,000 in asphalt for a medium home of 1,500 to 2,500 square feet. Shown as a cross-check, never blended with the figures above.
IBHS FORTIFIED, renew your designation	Verified 2026-07-27	Primary, program operator	The five-year designation period and the renewal inspection that keeps the discount alive, plus the updated expiration dates for designations renewing between 2024 and 2027.

Two labels on that table earn their capital letters. The replacement cost figures are contractor-published marketing, written to win jobs, not survey data. And the $700 to $1,700 feature cost comes from an IBHS sample built for Alabama locations with no publication date attached, so it is the best published figure available rather than a Louisiana measurement. Both are used because nothing better exists in public, and both are labeled so you can weigh them accordingly. The cost guide walks the same layers in prose.

One more IBHS figure belongs beside the two above rather than inside them. The same institute puts the added cost of the FORTIFIED features at roughly $1,000 to $3,000 on a typical 2,000 square foot home, a headline estimate that this site quotes on its cost guide, replacement page, and installation page. The calculator runs on the itemized worked scenario instead, $700 to $1,700 in features plus $300 to $600 for the evaluator, because only the itemized version separates the roof work from the evaluation that certifies it. The itemized figures add to $1,000 to $2,300, which is not the same total as the headline estimate, and this page does not pretend one is a breakdown of the other.

One recurring cost the calculator leaves out: designations run on a five-year period and need a renewal inspection by a certified FORTIFIED evaluator at the end of it, per IBHS, which also updated expiration dates for designations renewing between 2024 and 2027, so read the date on your own certificate rather than counting forward from issue. That renewal is what keeps the annual discount alive, which is why the evaluation service page treats it as a calendar item rather than paperwork.

Turn the estimate into a bid

Ranges end where measurements begin. Tell us your parish and situation, and an independent, Louisiana-licensed roofing contractor experienced with FORTIFIED work measures the roof for free and line-items the FORTIFIED features so the tax credit has the paper trail it runs on. The installation page covers what the work involves, and the full program guide maps every money layer in one place.

Name Phone

Parish or city What the job is By submitting this form, I agree that LA Fortified Roofing and a FORTIFIED roofing contractor may contact me at the phone number I provided, including by automated phone calls and prerecorded messages, regarding FORTIFIED roofing services. Consent is not a condition of any purchase. Message and data rates may apply. I may opt out at any time by asking to be removed during any call. See our Privacy Policy.

Your request goes straight to a licensed local roofing contractor serving Lafayette and Baton Rouge, usually within about an hour during the day, not a national lead list.

Prefer to talk? Call (337) 415-2246.