Flooding can close rural roads for days. (Adobe Stock photo) |
Flood insurance is a separate policy purchase from standard home insurance and typically property owners use the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s official flood maps for flood insurance purchasing guidance, which may be unwise. Eaglesham writes, "FEMA maps show eight million properties in high-risk flood zones. . . .The actual number of homes facing such risk is more than double that, according to research firm First Street Foundation. Much of the difference is because FEMA zones don’t reflect the risk of heavy rainfall."
At a time when torrential rainfall is becoming more common, a jump in flood insurance purchases by property owners may seem logical, but that's not what's happening. "The National Flood Insurance Program, which provides the lion’s share of flood coverage, had 4.65 million policies at the end of July, down 1.4% from the previous year and a million fewer than the peak of 5.7 million policies in 2009," Eaglesham reports. "The vast majority of Americans don’t have separate flood insurance."
If few property owners are insured when extreme weather destroys a region, taxpayers end up footing a lot of the bill. "The nationwide flood-insurance shortfall means the cost of rebuilding often falls on the taxpayer—via disaster relief — or inundated homeowners themselves," Eaglesham adds. "Many homeowners have dropped flood insurance because of the federal flood insurance program's cost increases. . . . The changes resulted in some policyholders facing huge premium increases."
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