Two Forms, Two Different Jobs
People use insurance inspection as though it were one thing. It is two, they ask opposite questions, and confusing them is how buyers end up paying for the wrong one twice.
The 4-point is defensive. A carrier wants to know whether the four systems most likely to cost them a claim are near the end of their lives. The wind mitigation report is the opposite: it exists to find you credits, and every line on it that the house earns comes off the wind portion of your premium. One protects the insurer. One is the only document in the transaction working purely for you.
Book them with the full inspection or you will pay twice for one trip. A 4-point alongside a full inspection is $75 rather than $150. Wind mitigation is free rather than $125. That is $200 saved on one phone call, and more usefully it is one appointment inside an inspection period that is running on calendar days including both weekends.
The 4-Point
Four systems, nothing else: roof, electrical, plumbing and HVAC. Age, condition and remaining service life on each.
What It Is Not
It is not a home inspection and it will not tell you whether the house is worth buying. It says nothing about the structure, the windows, the drainage or anything else. A buyer who books only a 4-point because a lender asked for one has bought an insurance document and no information about the property. The full explanation is in our blog post on the subject.
What Trips It Up in Titusville
A roof past the age a carrier will accept, which for shingle is usually somewhere in the fifteen to twenty year range and depends on who is writing the policy. Federal Pacific Stab-Lok or Zinsco panels, both common in this housing stock and both a replacement rather than a repair. Galvanized supply piping corroding closed from the inside. A water heater old enough that its label has faded. And cast iron drains, which the 4-point covers by condition and a sewer scope at $265 covers properly.
Finding any of those during your inspection period turns them into a negotiation. Finding them after closing turns them into your budget.
Wind Mitigation, Line by Line
Seven things get recorded, and it is worth understanding what each one is asking, because on a sixty-year-old house some of them are fixed and some are not.
The Lines You Cannot Change
Building code era, which is set by the permit date and is what it is. Roof geometry, meaning whether the roof is a hip or something else. That second one is the quiet good news in Titusville, because a great many of these 1960s ranch houses are genuine hip roofs, and hip is one of the stronger credits on the form.
The Lines a Re-Roof Decides
Roof covering and its permit date. Roof deck attachment, which is what the sheathing is nailed down with. Secondary water resistance, meaning a sealed underlayment beneath the covering. And in many cases the roof-to-wall connection itself.
All four of those are decided when the covering comes off, which makes a re-roof the single moment where this form can be improved cheaply. Deck re-nailing, adding secondary water resistance and improving roof-to-wall connections cost a fraction during a roof replacement compared with doing any of them as a standalone project later. If you are buying a Titusville house with a roof near the end of its life, that is not only a cost. It is the one opportunity you get.
Opening Protection, and the Jalousie Problem
The line most Titusville houses score nothing on. Jalousie windows, glass slats in an aluminum frame, are everywhere in this housing stock and are not rated protection. Neither is an ordinary single-pane aluminum window. Rated shutters or impact glazing earn the credit, and replacing jalousies is a real expense that also stops the house leaking conditioned air all summer. Whether it pays back depends on your quote, which is a conversation for your agent with the completed form in front of them.
What We Will Not Tell You
We do not sell insurance, we are not agents, and we take nothing from anyone who is. That matters here more than on any other page, because the whole category is full of people whose inspection recommendation and premium quote come from the same pocket.
So we will not tell you what your premium will be, which carrier to use, or what a credit is worth. What we produce is an accurate form describing the house as it actually is, photographed, with the method recorded. Which credits get applied and what they save is between you, your agent and the carrier, and two carriers will treat the same form differently. If you are dealing with Citizens specifically, our post on what Citizens asks for goes through it.
Booking Both in One Visit
For most Titusville buyers the right basket is the full inspection, the 4-point at $75 with it, and the free wind mitigation report. On anything with cast iron drains, add the sewer scope at $265, because it is the one failure in this housing stock that costs more than everything else on the invoice combined.
The whole schedule is published on the cost page. What the day itself looks like is on the what to expect page, and the Titusville overview covers why the housing here is the way it is. The instant quote tool returns your exact figure without a phone call.