A recent COGNITION survey indicated that resilience is now one of the primary lenses through which people evaluate a home.
For decades, product selections for homes have been largely determined by builder choices, homebuyer preferences, and codes. Now, there is a new, powerful stakeholder at the table determining product specifications: insurance companies.
As Amanda Cimaglia, Vice President of Sustainability at James Hardie, put it in a recent conversation, “Insurance companies are now part of the material selection process when it comes to building or rebuilding a home, and they are reshaping the economics of housing in real time.”
The reason is impossible to ignore. Wildfires, hurricanes, floods, hailstorms, and extreme temperature swings have grown more frequent and more severe, and the bill is landing on homeowners in the form of soaring premiums and cancelled policies. In markets like Florida and the wildfire zones of the West, Amanda observed, “insuring a home that hasn't been hardened against climate events has become punishingly expensive, if coverage is even available at all.”
Our latest COGNITION Smart Data research shows that homeowners are feeling every bit of this. More than eight in ten have watched their insurance premiums rise in just the past three years, with more than a quarter of them reporting that their rates have jumped 70% or more.
Six in ten homeowners relay that they have personally lived through a natural disaster or extreme-temperature event in their own home. Nearly the same percentage report that they know someone who has lost a home to a climate disaster outright.
Climate impacts are no longer abstract risks, they’re now part of our collective lived experience.
When we asked consumers how important resilience is when choosing a home, it scored a 4.0 out of 5, with seven in ten rating it a 4 or 5. When we asked which features should be standard in every new home, the number one answer wasn't a designer finish or a smart gadget, it was fire-resistant materials, named by 55% of respondents, just ahead of backup power.
In our companion survey of builders, 63% report that buyer demand for resiliency has climbed over the past three years, and 84% now call resilience an important or top selling point with their buyers. 85% percent of builder respondents believe resilient homes command a higher resale value. Nearly two-thirds of builders told us that rising insurance costs have already changed how they design, develop lots, and choose materials.
Lagging Awareness
Consumer demand, anxiety levels, and economics all point towards greater resiliency. So what's missing? According to Amanda, it’s awareness. “The solutions to build and rebuild resilient homes already exist. What's missing is that most homeowners don't know that there are resilient options that they can specify that will help their homes to better handle climate events. And too often, builders and specifiers and architects, they're just not talking enough about resiliency solutions."
Our data confirms the gap. Nearly 40% of consumers say they don't feel they have enough information to make their homes more resilient. On the professional side, builders named education and training as one of their biggest barriers, second only to upfront cost.
Available Solutions
The encouraging news is that the products doing this work are already on the shelf. Take two of the most exposed surfaces of any home: its walls and outdoor living space. James Hardie's fiber cement siding is non-combustible—it doesn't ignite the way wood siding does, and it doesn't melt the way vinyl does. In wildfire-prone regions, where an ember landing on the wrong surface can be the difference between a home that survives and one that doesn't, that distinction matters enormously.
Then there's the deck. As Amanda pointed out, “we default to wood without thinking, but we shouldn't. There are roughly 60 million decks in the United States today, and about 75% of them are still built from traditional wood. Only a quarter use high-performance materials.
That's a staggering amount of exterior surface area attached to American homes, much of it built without the benefit of advanced fire-performance technologies available today.
With TimberTech now part of the James Hardie family of brands, James Hardie brings decking into the mix, including select advanced products that are Class A flame spread-rated and ignition-resistant, listed by the California State Fire Marshal, and compliant with the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) requirements.
“Specifying resilient materials increasingly pays for itself,” Amanda insisted. “Roughly seven in ten insurers now offer premium discounts for homeowners who choose fortified, resilient siding and materials, and yet, before I worked for James Hardie, I would never have known that."
This is where resilience connects to something bigger. When a home is built to endure, when its siding won't burn, its decking is ignition resistant, its structure can withstand the storm, it costs less to insure, repair, and operate over its lifetime, and it holds its value better when it sells.
That is precisely the shift we've been championing through Value Per Square Foot, the idea that a home should be measured not by its sticker price, but by what it delivers over the decades someone lives in it. Resilience is one of the clearest expressions of that value, and homeowners are already telling us they'll pay for it when they understand it, indicated by the fact that 70% of consumers say they're likely to invest in resilient features if those features lower their long-term costs.
Amanda emphasized that sustainability and resilience can't live in separate silos, “A durable home and a low-carbon home should be the same home, and no single company, code body, or homeowner gets us there alone. It's going to take all of us from across the value chain.”
Because if we don't, we'll simply keep rebuilding the same vulnerable housing stock, over and over, and handing the bill to homeowners. We have better materials, a motivated market, and a clear reason to act. The only thing left is to close the gap between what people want and what they know they can have.
As cofounder and CEO of Green Builder Media, Sara is a visionary thought leader and passionate advocate for sustainability. A former venture capitalist, she has participated in the life cycle (from funding to exit) of over 20 companies, with an emphasis on combining sustainability and profitability. She lives in Lake City, Colo., with her husband, where she is an avid long-distance runner, snowboarder, and Crossfit trainer. She is also on the Board of Directors at Dvele, runs the Rural Segment for Energize Colorado, and is a former County Commissioner.
Resilience Tops the List
A recent COGNITION survey indicated that resilience is now one of the primary lenses through which people evaluate a home.
For decades, product selections for homes have been largely determined by builder choices, homebuyer preferences, and codes. Now, there is a new, powerful stakeholder at the table determining product specifications: insurance companies.
As Amanda Cimaglia, Vice President of Sustainability at James Hardie, put it in a recent conversation, “Insurance companies are now part of the material selection process when it comes to building or rebuilding a home, and they are reshaping the economics of housing in real time.”
The reason is impossible to ignore. Wildfires, hurricanes, floods, hailstorms, and extreme temperature swings have grown more frequent and more severe, and the bill is landing on homeowners in the form of soaring premiums and cancelled policies. In markets like Florida and the wildfire zones of the West, Amanda observed, “insuring a home that hasn't been hardened against climate events has become punishingly expensive, if coverage is even available at all.”
One of the key contributors to VISION House Austin's long-term durability and effortless style is the James Hardie fiber cement siding and trim system.
Resiliency Demand Soars
Our latest COGNITION Smart Data research shows that homeowners are feeling every bit of this. More than eight in ten have watched their insurance premiums rise in just the past three years, with more than a quarter of them reporting that their rates have jumped 70% or more.
Six in ten homeowners relay that they have personally lived through a natural disaster or extreme-temperature event in their own home. Nearly the same percentage report that they know someone who has lost a home to a climate disaster outright.
Climate impacts are no longer abstract risks, they’re now part of our collective lived experience.
When we asked consumers how important resilience is when choosing a home, it scored a 4.0 out of 5, with seven in ten rating it a 4 or 5. When we asked which features should be standard in every new home, the number one answer wasn't a designer finish or a smart gadget, it was fire-resistant materials, named by 55% of respondents, just ahead of backup power.
In our companion survey of builders, 63% report that buyer demand for resiliency has climbed over the past three years, and 84% now call resilience an important or top selling point with their buyers. 85% percent of builder respondents believe resilient homes command a higher resale value. Nearly two-thirds of builders told us that rising insurance costs have already changed how they design, develop lots, and choose materials.
Lagging Awareness
Consumer demand, anxiety levels, and economics all point towards greater resiliency. So what's missing? According to Amanda, it’s awareness. “The solutions to build and rebuild resilient homes already exist. What's missing is that most homeowners don't know that there are resilient options that they can specify that will help their homes to better handle climate events. And too often, builders and specifiers and architects, they're just not talking enough about resiliency solutions."
Our data confirms the gap. Nearly 40% of consumers say they don't feel they have enough information to make their homes more resilient. On the professional side, builders named education and training as one of their biggest barriers, second only to upfront cost.
Available Solutions
The encouraging news is that the products doing this work are already on the shelf. Take two of the most exposed surfaces of any home: its walls and outdoor living space. James Hardie's fiber cement siding is non-combustible—it doesn't ignite the way wood siding does, and it doesn't melt the way vinyl does. In wildfire-prone regions, where an ember landing on the wrong surface can be the difference between a home that survives and one that doesn't, that distinction matters enormously.
Then there's the deck. As Amanda pointed out, “we default to wood without thinking, but we shouldn't. There are roughly 60 million decks in the United States today, and about 75% of them are still built from traditional wood. Only a quarter use high-performance materials.
That's a staggering amount of exterior surface area attached to American homes, much of it built without the benefit of advanced fire-performance technologies available today.
With TimberTech now part of the James Hardie family of brands, James Hardie brings decking into the mix, including select advanced products that are Class A flame spread-rated and ignition-resistant, listed by the California State Fire Marshal, and compliant with the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) requirements.
“Specifying resilient materials increasingly pays for itself,” Amanda insisted. “Roughly seven in ten insurers now offer premium discounts for homeowners who choose fortified, resilient siding and materials, and yet, before I worked for James Hardie, I would never have known that."
This is where resilience connects to something bigger. When a home is built to endure, when its siding won't burn, its decking is ignition resistant, its structure can withstand the storm, it costs less to insure, repair, and operate over its lifetime, and it holds its value better when it sells.
That is precisely the shift we've been championing through Value Per Square Foot, the idea that a home should be measured not by its sticker price, but by what it delivers over the decades someone lives in it. Resilience is one of the clearest expressions of that value, and homeowners are already telling us they'll pay for it when they understand it, indicated by the fact that 70% of consumers say they're likely to invest in resilient features if those features lower their long-term costs.
Amanda emphasized that sustainability and resilience can't live in separate silos, “A durable home and a low-carbon home should be the same home, and no single company, code body, or homeowner gets us there alone. It's going to take all of us from across the value chain.”
Because if we don't, we'll simply keep rebuilding the same vulnerable housing stock, over and over, and handing the bill to homeowners. We have better materials, a motivated market, and a clear reason to act. The only thing left is to close the gap between what people want and what they know they can have.
By Sara Gutterman
As cofounder and CEO of Green Builder Media, Sara is a visionary thought leader and passionate advocate for sustainability. A former venture capitalist, she has participated in the life cycle (from funding to exit) of over 20 companies, with an emphasis on combining sustainability and profitability. She lives in Lake City, Colo., with her husband, where she is an avid long-distance runner, snowboarder, and Crossfit trainer. She is also on the Board of Directors at Dvele, runs the Rural Segment for Energize Colorado, and is a former County Commissioner.Also Read