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Homeowners and Flood Coverage

Fact: Most homeowners insurance policies do not cover flood damage.

Unfortunately, almost all standard homeowners policies won't cover flood damage, even if it's the result of a hurricane. From a financial perspective, it's understandable: the catastrophic risks associated with floods are costly, and historically only people who knew they were likely to be flooded bought flood insurance. Insurance providers either stopped underwriting flood insurance or raised premiums beyond the reach of most people.

Luckily for homeowners, the federal government stepped in and created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The NFIP made federally-backed flood insurance available for reasonable premium rates. For example, for a property in a high-risk flood zone, the average premium is around $400 a year or $33 a month, for about $100,000 of building coverage. In lower-risk zones the premiums can go as low as $112 a year or less than 30 cents a day for $20,000 in building coverage and $8,000 in contents coverage. By comparison, a $50,000 federal disaster assistance loan can cost you about $240 a month at 4% interest over 20 years. (Rates as of 9-06)

The benefits of flood insurance

When you're a flood insurance policyholder:
  • Flood insurance compensates you for covered losses.
  • You can depend on being reimbursed for covered flood damages, even if the President does not declare a federal disaster.
  • You do not have to repay a loan, as you might with many federal disaster relief packages. Your covered losses are paid based on the policy provisions. Best of all-there's no waiting in line to apply for disaster assistance.
  • You can count on your covered loss to be paid in the event of a flood loss because NFIP flood insurance is backed by the federal government.
  • Your agent can help you handle your claim quickly, so that you will not have to put your life on hold if your property is damaged by a flood. You can even request a partial payment immediately after the flood.

Get flood insurance today.

Considering the prohibitive cost of a disaster assistance loan or depleting your savings to replace your valuables, household and personal items, and repairing your home-all while continuing to pay your mortgage-the cost of flood insurance becomes minimal by comparison. We encourage you to get covered today, especially since in most cases, there's a 30-day waiting period before your flood insurance goes into effect. Don't wait for an impending flood to get the financial protection of flood insurance. Contact our insurance agency at (800) 862-2070 for more information.