Can you get flood insurance if you are not in a floodplain?

One of the most misunderstood ideas about flood insurance is that you can only get flood insurance if you are in a high-risk flood zone. But you can and should consider getting flood insurance even if your lender doesn’t require it. If your structure is in a high-risk flood zone, usually identified with an A, AE flood zone, or V, your lender will require flood insurance to stay within federal law compliance. They determine this by having a company pull what is called a flood zone determination (FZD), and this document will indicate if a property is in a high-risk flood zone or not. If not, then your lender will likely not even mention flood insurance. 

Property outside of a floodplain is identified with an X flood zone. Just because your lender doesn’t require flood insurance doesn’t mean your property is safe from flooding yearly. Researchers have found that the federal information is so outdated that many more properties are at risk of flooding than FEMA has identified on their maps. And this data shows that more Americans are in danger than previously thought. Some 14.6 million properties are at immediate risk of flooding. This is 6 million more than FEMA previously calculated. Maybe your home, business, or structure is more vulnerable than you know. The research predicts that by 2050 some 16 million properties will flood. 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) may not have mapped your home into a high-risk floodplain. FEMA doesn’t have the budget to map every inch of this county accurately and has only spent its resources on the areas they conder most vulnerable.  

FEMA said in 2018, it had just under 5.2 million policies in force. Where are the other 9.4? These are the homes and businesses that either choose to not have insurance or are unaware of their true risk. 

Are you thinking about not getting flood coverage? The average claim in 2018 was 52,000 dollars of damage. In 2022, with inflation, that could be $91,232, and this cost will keep climbing, especially when you factor in the magnitude of a national disaster. 

Most people think they only need flood insurance if they are in a high-risk flood zone. FEMA released data showing that every year 20 percent of those flooded properties came from properties outside of these high-risk flood zones. 

You can buy flood insurance by researching and shopping over 60 options. Or you can ask one of us, Flood Nerds™, to do the shopping for you. We are a flood insurance-only agency, and because we specialize, we know how to find great coverage that matches your unique property’s needs.