How To Make Resiliency More Like Kitchens
Abby Ross, CEO, The Resiliency Company
I live in a classic Chicago bungalow built in 1890. When we bought it, we decided to upgrade the mismatched floors and outdated layout. Our realtor, architect, and general contractor all had the same advice: update the kitchen for the best resale value.
The data somewhat confirms this but the decision to update your kitchen is not only financial, it’s also practical and emotional:
Practical - Kitchens are used a lot and so it makes sense to focus on them
Emotional - Kitchens are where a lot of good living happens: sharing a meal with loved ones, hosting a party for friends, etc
Financial - investing in kitchen upgrades will be recouped when you sell
At The Resiliency Company, we’re constantly exploring how to make resiliency like kitchens. How does the argument for making your home resilient span practical, emotional and financial dimensions? Here’s my current take:
Practical - Your home needs to be able to withstand the changed and changing weather, including extreme weather events, such as major fires, hurricanes, storms, and unprecedented heat (no brainer)
Emotional - Your home is your refuge, the place that centers you in a sometimes chaotic world, it’s the place you want to feel safe and calm (no brainer)
Financial - This is where things get muddy…
The current financial dimension to resiliency is anchored to insurance costs. The narrative is that if you make your home resilient, your insurance should be cheaper and the savings in your premiums being the ROI. In cases of wildfire, the math doesn’t always pencil out, nor does the model:
The Math: Making a home resilient means adhering to the kind of standards issued by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS). For wildfire, this costs between $5,000-25,000 for a new build or a rebuild and up to $100,000 as a retrofit. However, the average duration of home ownership is about twelve years. It’s hard to see how lower insurance premiums will recoup the cost of resiliency over that period.
The Model: However, a FORTIFIED™ roof only adds $1,000-$3,000 more than standard roof. This might have the possibility to recoup the cost, but insurance policies are annual, their costs change year to year, and they are not consistent across carriers for fire nor roofs.
All in all, an insurance-based approach to understand the value of resiliency is limited. The financial ROI of a resilient home is better anchored on value creation and the benefit of availability and affordability of insurance.
Sarah Conway, author of the excellent Risk & Resilience Ledger Substack, recently described this inability to see the true value of resiliency:
"This value is real, but it remains largely invisible to financial models optimized for growth, margins, and short-term returns. As a result, adaptation often appears “uneconomic” not because it destroys value, but because it protects value that would otherwise be lost."
The idea that protecting your home from the changed and changing weather is not of value is clearly wrong -- financially, emotionally and practically. We need to move beyond the insurance narrative to see that. Thankfully, there are windows into this new worldview. In Alabama, 52,000 homes were made more hurricane-resilient by installing FORTIFIED™ roofs. It resulted in a 7% increase in the value of those homes.
That math and model has the potential to make resiliency more like kitchens – and something that realtors, architects, general contractors, and homeowners all advocate for because of the value creation, not the potential for discounts.
Abby Ross
Founder & CEO, The Resiliency Company
abby@resiliency.com