Another hurricane season behind us
Time sure flies when you’re having fun, and this was certainly a fun year for hurricanes or the lack thereof. But I fear that we may be letting our guard down just a little, so in an effort to bring you back to reality, let’s talk about the one thing almost everyone hates to talk about – flood insurance.
Coastal flooding isn’t necessarily tied to hurricane season. True hurricanes and tropical storms, especially accompanied by high tides, can create a serious flooding condition, but you can have flooding all year round from just several days of heavy rain, which we experienced this past summer.
Most homeowners carry flood insurance, particularly if they have a mortgage on the property, since it’s mandated by lenders. But even if your home isn’t mortgaged, flood insurance is an important thing to have in high risk zones like Anna Maria Island.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is a federal program designed to reduce losses to individuals and businesses from flooding. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the federal agency that identifies food hazard areas and designates which of the four flood plains the property is in.
Flood zones V and A are the zones most likely to flood and B and X are considered low risk zones. Zone V represents areas that are on coastlines, rivers and bays. These properties are most likely to flood and have the highest flood insurance premiums. FEMA requires that properties built in a V zone elevate the living space above ground level and lower levels must be enclosed only with breakaway materials. The A zone has a 1 percent chance that the property will flood within a given year or once every 100 years. Naturally all properties on Anna Maria Island are in either the V or A zone.
Flood insurance coverage does have limits and the standard flood insurance policy for a one to four family structure has a limit of $250,000 for the building and $100,000 for the contents. Renters can also purchase a flood policy to insure their personal property.
Since 2012 when the ill conceived Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act was passed by Congress, the coastal and riverfront communities throughout the country started a mass rebellion. The intention of the reform act was to raise rates on flood policies to reflect the true flood risk rather than continue subsidizing homeowners’ premiums. The hope was to make the federal program more financially stable and reduce the 24 million dollars in debt the NFIP was carrying.
The shockingly high rates became unaffordable for some homeowners and impacted the value of their property. Because of the general outrage in the country Congress was forced to revisit the issue and in 2014 it passed the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act.
The new act repealed and modified certain provisions of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, lowered the recent rate increases on some policies, prevented some future rate increases and implemented a surcharge on all policy holders. It required a gradual rate increase on properties that are still receiving artificially low rates instead of immediate increases to full risk rates. According to FEMA rates are required to increase no less than 5 percent annually and no more than 18 percent annually until full risk levels are met.
Even though it’s not quite Nov. 30, it’s probably OK to relax and be happy we navigated through another hurricane season. Just remember a flood is a flood is a flood, and it’s not always associated with hurricanes.