Nov. 05--NORTH HAVEN -- Home owners living in flood zones could face significant increases in their insurance coverage if they are part of a government-backed program, according to real estate industry and disaster remediation officials.
The reason for the increases in flood insurance available for Connecticut homeowners is the damage done along the state's coastline by Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, said Michael Barbaro, president of the New Haven Middlesex Association of Realtors.
"Prior to Irene and Sandy, Connecticut was profitable for the NFIP," Barbaro said Wednesday night during a public forum on flood insurance at the real estate group's Washington Avenue headquarters. To some extent, the rule changes and rate increases enacted since then are an attempt to recover from those losses.
The flood insurance to which Barbaro referred is provided through the National Flood Insurance Program, which is managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And disaster mitigation experts say that some home and business owners in flood zones could be facing premium cost increases in excess of 25 percent annually.
There is level of irony in those increases because the NFIP was created in 1968 by Congress in an effort to make affordable insurance available to home and business owners. Flood insurance had become virtually impossible to get at that time because of widespread flooding along the Mississippi River in the early 1960s.
Lisa Sharrard Jones, whose business Carolina Flood Solutions does flood plain management and mitigation services in South Carolina, said home and business owners who are in flood zones need to be vigilant in reviewing their insurance policies as well as assessments of their property done by the NFIP.
"They make mistakes," Jones said of the NFIP staffers who evaluate applications for flood insurance. "They are on production schedules because they get paid by the amount of policies in force. So they spend about 10 minutes reviewing your application."
Having an up-to-date elevation certificate for your property is also important, she said.
Elevation certificates are an administrative tool used by the NFIP to provide elevation information necessary to ensure compliance with to community floodplain management ordinances as well as to determine the proper insurance premium rate, according to FEMA website.
Having an accurate and up-to-date elevation certificate can sometimes result in lower premiums, Jones said. And having one when you go to sell your home is equally important, she said. Having one makes it easier to transfer flood insurance from the existing homeowner to the buyer, Jones said.
"Homebuyers used to ask Realtors what school district a home was in," she said. "Now they ask whether the property is in a flood zone."
Call Luther Turmelle at 203-680-9388.
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