My Safe Florida Home is designed to offer $250 million in grants over three years.

A pilot program ended in January, and My Safe Florida Home faced an unexpected delay while a new, larger group of inspectors was brought in, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink said. The program resumed last month.

"There was probably a lack of leadership," Sink said. "It hasn't gone along as smoothly as any one of us would have expected."

Homeowners are slated to receive matching grants of up to $5,000 if they follow hurricane mitigation inspectors' recommendations.

More than 51,000 people remained on a waiting list after the pilot program, and they were expected to be the first to receive inspections when My Safe Florida Home restarted.

The department expects those on its current waiting list to have their homes inspected by the end of July, said Tara Klimek, Sink's communications director. Homes of new applicants will be inspected beginning in August.

The program will provide inspections to at least 400,000 single-family homes and grants to at least 35,000 applicants before June 30, 2009. Only Floridians whose homes are valued at $300,000 or less are eligible.

The Department of Financial Services will have a qualified inspection firm or inspector call to schedule your inspection.

The pilot program that ran from August to late January was popular, with more than 14,000 free wind inspections conducted in 17 counties. In Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, 2,662 inspections took place.

On average, homeowners involved in the pilot program were eligible for 18 percent insurance premium discounts without mitigation efforts because inspections showed their homes were better braced for hurricanes than their insurance companies had thought, Klimek said.

Those homeowners received inspection reports and grant applications to apply for matching funds. Through mid-April, the Department of Financial Services received more than 5,000 applications from those homeowners, who are working with contractors and improving their homes.

TO APPLY

You can apply for the program at mysafefloridahome.com or by calling 1-800-342-2762.