How the 4-Point Inspection Came to Exist

How the 4-Point Inspection Came to Exist

The concept of the 4-point inspection traces back to Hurricane Andrew, which struck South Florida in 1992 and caused over $26 billion in insured losses — a figure that was virtually unprecedented at the time. The storm bankrupted multiple insurance companies outright and caused others to pull out of the Florida market entirely. In the aftermath, nearly a million coastal homeowners were left unable to find coverage from any private insurer willing to do business in the state.

In 2002, the Florida Legislature responded by merging two existing state-backed insurance entities — the Florida Residential Property and Casualty Joint Underwriting Association and the Florida Windstorm Underwriting Association — into a single entity called Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Citizens was designed to serve as the insurer of last resort for homeowners who could not find coverage in the private market. As Citizens began insuring a rapidly growing number of properties, it needed a way to evaluate the risk associated with each one — particularly older homes where the major systems may have been aging, deteriorating, or long overdue for replacement.

The 4-point inspection was the answer. Citizens developed the process and the standardized form, and it quickly spread across the Florida insurance industry. Today, virtually every insurance carrier doing business in the state either requires or accepts the 4-point inspection as part of their underwriting process. The form that most carriers use — or at minimum accept — is the one published and maintained by Citizens, currently designated as Form Insp4pt 03 25, which was last updated in March 2025.