All About Emergency Flood Insurance

If you live someplace prone to flooding, tropical storms, hurricane and other water-intensive disasters, it’s important to obtain emergency flood insurance. Emergency flood insurance is a customized type of insurance based on the value of your home and belongings and your individualized coverage needs, and can save you if a disaster were to strike. Unfortunately, though, the insurance isn’t available in every city, you can’t just purchase it outright, and homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover you if you suffer a flood.  We’ll go over how to obtain emergency flood insurance in this article (if applicable), and how it works.

In 1968, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This program made it so homeowners, business owners and renters can elect to be covered by the NFIP if their community partakes in the program. Communities that participate must enforce program rules that meet or exceed FEMA requirements. The ordinances are put in place to reduce the hazards and risk of flooding and to keep the community as safe as humanly possible.

But should you purchase emergency flood insurance? If you’re not sure, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you live near a large body of water?
• Is the area you live in prone to things such as hurricanes?
  • o Floods?
  • o Excessive rain?
  • o Tropical storms?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you should consider buying emergency flood insurance if your community takes part in the NFIP program. You would need to purchase it through a private insurance agency. FEMA works with around 90 private insurance agencies.

The insurance can be purchased through agencies that offer it, through their property & casualty insurance department. The rate will depend on factors such as the date your home was built and its type of construction. There may be other factors, depending on the agency, such as a quantified “risk factor” of your home, office building, etc.

For more information, visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website: http://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program

For a list of insurance agencies with “write your own insurance” policies, go here: http://www.fema.gov/wyo_company

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