Flood Insurance

We review the best flood insurance providers helping you find the ideal service to suit your needs. Whether you’re looking for a service with low rates, big discounts, or pay-in-full insurance, we’ll help you find the ideal flood insurance that will suit your needs.

If you are living on the coast and you are financing your home, you are probably required to have flood insurance. With climate change and rising sea levels, even homeowners who are in a moderate risk of flood zones should also consider getting flood insurance.

Here is a quick guide to help you find the best flood insurance which will suit your needs.

Why Should I Get Flood Insurance?

It may seem that natural disasters are the only cause of the flood, but it is not. Flooding can come from just about anywhere. This is why a lot of us are asking the same question: Should I really get flood insurance?

The answer is of course, yes, you should get flood insurance. You may never be able to remove the risk of flooding, but you can take measures to reduce the risk – both physically and financially. You might want to talk to your local insurance agent to discuss and see if flood insurance is the right fit for you.

Are You At a Flood-Risk Zone?

It’s a common misconception that low-risk flood areas are areas with  no risk at all – flood maps change over time so an area that used to be low risk before may become a high risk at some point. Different factors affect risk zone levels – local dam improvements and changing weather patterns are some of the things that can contribute to a flood risk zone changing over time.

But how would you know the current risk level of your community? You can get updated flood maps from FEMA, a federal government agency. They update the flood maps yearly through both in-house studies and community-initiated map revisions.

Types of Flood Insurance

There are two types of flood insurance. The first one is available through FEMA, and the second one is available through private insurance companies. Both insurance types have different coverage options and costs.

NFIP

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) provides its flood insurance through FEMA. If your community is one of the 21,000 communities that are included in the program, then you should be eligible for both types of NFIP coverage, the building property and personal property.

Building property coverage is a replacement cost value coverage which means that it covers how much it would cost to repair or replace your home up to $250,000. While the personal property (contents) coverage returns up to $100,000 in items, and it also includes depreciation value. For example, you paid $2,000 for that television four years ago, personal property coverage would pay for what it would be worth today rather than what you have paid for it originally or how much it would cost to replace it.

Private Flood Insurance

There are limited numbers of insurance companies that offer private flood insurance that is not funded through the federal government. The reason for this is that private flood insurance policies vary by the insurance companies that provide them. The best thing to do is to ask your insurance agent to give you a quote on NFIP and a quote for private flood insurance and see which one will cover you in various situations.