PACE Financing vs. My Safe Florida Home: What Homeowners Should Know in 2026

The biggest barrier to upgrading a Florida home with hurricane impact windows is no longer skepticism about whether the windows work. After Hurricane Andrew, the post-Charley rebuild, and a decade of wind mitigation data showing that post-FBC homes outperform pre-FBC homes by wide margins, the case for impact glass is settled. The barrier in 2026 is cash flow. A whole-home impact window project can run $25,000 to $80,000 in South Florida, and most homeowners do not have that money sitting in a savings account.

Two programs have become the default funding paths for that gap. The My Safe Florida Home grant pays a portion of qualifying upgrades for income-eligible homeowners. PACE financing covers the remaining cost (or the entire cost) through a property tax assessment with no credit check. The two programs work very differently, and the difference matters because mixing them up can cost a homeowner a $10,000 grant or an entire year of waiting in the wrong queue.

Why financing is now the bottleneck

Florida homeowners insurance premiums have climbed faster than wages every year since 2020. SB 2A’s 2022 reforms have produced real recovery, with carriers writing new business in 2025 and 2026 and Citizens Property Insurance shedding policies back into the private market. But premiums in coastal Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties have not returned to pre-crisis levels, and hurricane deductibles tied to wind events continue to rise.

The cleanest way to lower a premium is to qualify for opening protection credit on the OIR-B1-1802 wind mitigation form. That credit alone can cut a homeowner’s annual premium by hundreds to a few thousand dollars in coastal counties. The catch is that opening protection credit follows an all-or-nothing rule: every glazed opening on the home has to be impact-rated or covered by approved shutters before the credit applies. Half a house of impact windows earns the homeowner zero credit, which means partial upgrades stall on the math.

That is the moment when a homeowner stops shopping installers and starts shopping financing. The answer, almost always, is some combination of My Safe Florida Home and PACE.

How the My Safe Florida Home program works in 2026

My Safe Florida Home is a state grant program administered by the Florida Department of Financial Services. The state appropriated $280 million for the FY 2025-2026 cycle, and the legislature has proposed more than $600 million for FY 2026-2027 to clear a backlog of approximately 45,000 applicants. If the FY 2026-2027 appropriation passes at the proposed level, MSFH will be the largest state-funded home hardening program in U.S. history. Applications and program rules live at mysafeflhome.com.

The program has two components. The first is a free wind mitigation inspection, available to any eligible homeowner regardless of income. A certified inspector visits the home, completes the OIR-B1-1802 form, and identifies which improvements would qualify the home for insurance discounts. The inspection by itself can generate immediate premium reductions on existing qualifying features and saves the homeowner the $75 to $150 a private inspection would cost.

The second component is the matching grant, and this is where most homeowners engage with the program. Low-income applicants (at or below 80 percent of county median income) receive up to $10,000 in state funding with no matching requirement. Moderate-income applicants (80 to 120 percent of county median income) receive a 2:1 match, which means a homeowner who invests $5,000 of their own money receives $10,000 from the state. Above-moderate-income applicants get the free inspection but no grant.

Eligibility is narrower than most homeowners assume. The home must be a single-family detached or townhouse of three stories or less, the building permit must have been issued before January 1, 2008, the home must be the applicant’s primary residence with active homestead exemption, and the insured dwelling value must be at or below $700,000 (low-income applicants are exempt from the value cap). Covered improvements include impact windows, impact doors (entry, sliding, French), impact garage doors, hurricane shutters, roof upgrades, roof-to-wall connections, and secondary water resistance.

One rule trips up more applicants than any other. Construction cannot begin until the grant is officially approved. Homeowners who sign a contract or break ground before approval are automatically disqualified. The application process moved through prioritized waves in 2025, starting with low-income applicants age 60 and older in early August and ending with moderate-income applicants under 60 in mid-September. Typical wait times run 8 to 12 months, with low-income senior applicants seeing 4 to 6 months and a long tail extending past 18 months in some cases. About 49 percent of recipients in the most recent cycle reported insurance discounts, with average reported savings of approximately $981 per year.

Where PACE financing fits

PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) financing covers the part of an impact window project that the MSFH grant does not. PACE is structured as a special assessment on the home’s property tax bill, repaid over 10 to 25 years. There is no down payment, no credit check, and no traditional lender to qualify. Interest rates run 6 to 9 percent fixed, and the assessment transfers with the property if the home is sold.

PACE is the right answer in three common scenarios. The first is a homeowner who does not qualify for traditional financing because of credit history, debt-to-income ratio, or self-employment income that is hard to document. The second is an above-moderate-income homeowner who is ineligible for MSFH grants and needs $0 out of pocket on a project the homeowner plans to hold for at least 10 years. The third is a homeowner who needs to start work quickly, before a property sale or before insurance renewal, and cannot afford to wait out the MSFH approval timeline.

PACE is the wrong answer in three other scenarios. A homeowner who qualifies for a HELOC or home equity loan at 6 to 7 percent will usually do better there because the closing costs are lower and the lien position does not interfere with the mortgage. A homeowner planning to sell the property within a few years should think hard before committing to a PACE assessment, because the lien must be disclosed at sale and some buyers’ lenders treat PACE liens as deal blockers. And any homeowner with cash on hand will save thousands of dollars in finance charges by paying directly. The full picture of financing options for impact windows is worth reviewing before settling on PACE as the answer.

When stacking both paths makes sense

The strongest play for an income-qualified homeowner is to stack the two programs. A moderate-income homeowner who applies for MSFH and is approved for the maximum 2:1 match contributes $5,000 toward a project budgeted at $15,000 of qualifying improvements. If the full project is $40,000, the homeowner can finance the remaining $30,000 (the project balance plus the homeowner’s $5,000 match contribution, less any cash) through PACE. The result: zero cash out of pocket, $10,000 of grant funding applied to the most code-relevant openings, and a 10-to-25-year repayment schedule attached to the home rather than to the homeowner personally.

Sequencing matters. The MSFH grant must be approved before any work begins. PACE assessments fund at the contract signing or at completion depending on the provider. The mistake to avoid is signing a PACE contract while the MSFH application is still pending, because the moment construction starts on grant-eligible openings, the grant disappears.

What homeowners should ask before signing

Three questions separate a clean financing package from one that produces a callback or a rejected grant. First, ask the contractor whether they file MSFH paperwork in-house or refer the homeowner to a third party. The state’s portal accepts contractor uploads, and a contractor who handles the filing directly catches mistakes early. Second, ask for a written sequencing plan that shows when each program funds, when work starts, and when the homeowner’s match payment is due. Third, ask which insurance carrier the contractor’s wind mitigation inspector files with most often. The OIR-B1-1802 form is uniform across the state, but specific carriers process the credit faster when the inspector is on a familiar list. For a deeper look at the program rules and how matching grants apply to specific projects, the My Safe Florida Home program overview walks through the timeline and eligibility tests in detail.

The two programs are not competing. They are complementary, and homeowners who treat them that way will lock in opening protection credit, lower their premiums, and pay for most of the project with money that is not their own.