Why the exclusion lands hardest in Rhode Island

Because of where Rhode Island's condominiums are. A substantial share of the state's condominium stock sits on or near the coast — Narragansett, Newport, Middletown, Westerly, Charlestown, Block Island — which is precisely the exposure the programme was created to reduce. The buildings with the greatest wind exposure per dollar of insured value are the ones the statute writes out.

Two further Rhode Island facts sharpen it.

The state's hurricane-deductible cap does not protect them either. The 5% ceiling on hurricane deductibles in 230-RICR-20-05-13 applies, by its own § 13.2, to “residential property insurance policies insuring dwelling houses”, and “this Part is not applicable to commercial insurance policies.” A condominium master policy is a commercial line.

And the deductible is now the owner's problem. Since June 24, 2025, § 34-36.1-3.13(k) requires unit owners to carry “[i]nsurance for any amount of loss covered by the association property insurance policy but not payable…because of the application of the deductible.” Our Rhode Island insurance requirements page covers that shift.

So a Rhode Island condominium owner in a coastal building faces an uncapped commercial hurricane deductible, a statutory duty to insure the gap themselves, and no access to the state programme that would pay to reduce the underlying risk.

What is actually available to a condominium association

Three routes, and none of them is the grant.

The nonprofit channel in the same section. Subsection (d) permits the programme to “make grants or funding available to nonprofit entities for projects to construct or retrofit insurable properties to resist loss due to a hurricane or other catastrophic windstorm if such grants or funding to nonprofit entities are allowable under grant or funding rules”, provided the entity administers the funds as the programme would and documents it. Most Rhode Island associations are incorporated as nonprofits under chapter 7-6 — § 34-36.1-3.01 permits an association to be “organized as a profit or nonprofit corporation or as an unincorporated association”. Whether the Insurance Division would treat a nonprofit condominium association as an eligible nonprofit entity under subsection (d) is unresolved on the face of the statute, and the Division has rulemaking authority under subsection (f) to answer it. That is a question worth putting to the Division in writing rather than assuming either way.

Do the Fortified work anyway. The IBHS standards are published and an association can retrofit to FORTIFIED Roof without a grant. The insurance value of the designation does not depend on who paid for it, and a board negotiating a wind renewal has more to work with after the certificate than before it.

Ask the carrier about credit. Rhode Island regulation requires that “[a]ll deductibles must provide for a premium credit that is actuarially supported” on personal lines; on a commercial master policy the credit is a negotiation, and a Fortified designation is the strongest input to it.

The wider pattern in the 2026 session

This is the second time in the same session that Rhode Island wrote a rule that reaches single-family homes and stops short of condominiums. The building code act, Chapter 377, moved the International Residential Code threshold to cover one- to four-family dwellings and put buildings of more than four residential units under the commercial International Building Code — a sensible line that nonetheless puts most condominium buildings on the commercial side of the code.

Neither exclusion looks deliberate in the sense of being aimed at condominium owners. Both look like drafting from a single-family default. The effect is the same either way.

A board's options

Ask the Insurance Division about subsection (d) in writing. A yes would make the programme reachable for common-element roof work. A no is worth having on paper before the 2027 session.

Tell your owners the grant is not available to them. A coastal Rhode Island unit owner reading press coverage of “Strengthen Rhody Homes” will reasonably assume it applies.

Get an IBHS evaluation anyway if a roof is due. If the association is replacing a roof in the next three years, specifying it to the Fortified standard costs a premium at construction and changes the insurance conversation for two decades.

Keep the grant exclusion in the file for next session. “Rhode Island's own hurricane-hardening programme excludes the buildings with the most wind exposure in the state” is a short, checkable submission to a legislator or to the condominium law commission.

What to watch next

Whether the programme is funded at all. Subsection (b) makes implementation contingent on federal grants or other outside funding, and subsection (g)(12) creates a revolving fund that “shall consist of any monies deposited to the fund from the receipt of federal grants or funds or from other sources”. A programme with no appropriation is a framework waiting for money. Watch also for whether the sixteen-member condominium law commission, reporting by December 31, 2027 and holding a seat for an insurance underwriter with condominium expertise, picks the exclusion up.