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Alabama Flood Insurance: New Federal Flood Program Risk Rating 2.0

May 25th, 2021 | 3 min read

By Chris Greene

The Flood Insurance Guru | Alabama Flood Insurance: New Federal Flood Program Risk Rating 2.0

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is rolling out changes when it comes to flood insurance rates across all states in the country. Today, we will unpack these changes coming to Alabama and how they can impact your flood insurance in the future.

The Flood Insurance Guru | Alabama Flood Insurance: New Federal Flood Program Risk Rating 2.0

Alabama has been facing a lot of threats when it comes to flood damage and this is something that even homes that aren't in a high-risk flood zone are being impacted severely by floods. This is why it's always important to make sure that you have the best flood coverage with your insurance policy in relation to the premiums that you're paying for.

Here in Flood Insurance Guru, we always believe that the true risk of floods lies in the amount of protection that your insured property has against these impacts of flood waters.

NFIP Risk Rating 2.0

This new program that FEMA is planning to enforce with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in order to make sure that individuals will no longer pay more than their fair share of flood premiums based on the value of their homes. Most likely, these new risk ratings are going to be in full effect by October this year. Today, we want to discuss the premium rate changes coming to Alabama in order to better prepare ourselves for the upcoming changes.

Generally, this also means that your average flood insurance rates will depend on your property value. It's important to keep in mind that expensive properties may face higher premiums as a result of these rate changes.

Now, when it comes to the Risk Rating 2.0 or NFIP 2.0, you're going to see these ranges that are called green, blue, pink, and grey portions. Each bar represents the good, the bad, and the ugly changes when it comes to premium rates with the NFIP in Alabama. Let's break each one of them down to further get an insight into how these changes can impact you.

The Flood Insurance Guru | Flood Map Updates | Julesburg, Sedgwick County, ColoradoThe Flood Insurance Guru | Alabama Flood Insurance: New Federal Flood Program Risk Rating 2.0

The Good

When it comes to the green bar or the green range, this is generally the good change that you can see since this means that there'll be a decrease of more than $100 on flood insurance premiums. Now, this change will be an immediate change once the Risk Rating 2.0 kicks in on October 1st. This is good news for the 11,220 or 21% of policyholders in Alabama since this means you get to save on your premiums starting this October.

The Flood Insurance Guru | Alabama Flood Insurance: New Federal Flood Program Risk Rating 2.0

The Bad

Now, let's talk about the bad change which you'll see in that blue range. We're talking about the 36,736 Alabama policyholders or 70% that will experience this change. This is a bad change because we're looking at an increase of up to $10 per month for that 70% of the policyholders in Alabama when it comes to the flood insurance premium you're going to pay. This amount eventually totals to about $120 per year when this change kicks in October.

Now, this may not sound big when it comes to some people however you have to consider that the federal flood insurance or FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) continuously updates flood maps, and properties that are sitting on those high-risk flood zones can find this increase very hard to swallow.

The Flood Insurance Guru | Alabama Flood Insurance: New Federal Flood Program Risk Rating 2.0

The Ugly

These ugly changes are what you'll see in the pink and grey bars in that Risk Rating 2.0. Now, we call this ugly because 6% in that pink range which is about 2,991 policies in Alabama, is going to get about a $10 to $20 increase per month. This totals from $120 to $240 per year.

You also want to include in this ugly change the 3% or about 1,706 policies who will experience a rate increase of more than $20 per month which can go way over $240 per year.

This can really be very ugly for property owners who are facing expensive premiums. We mentioned that the premium itself would be different on each individual properties in Alabama; this includes flood map data, flood claims and flood damage history, risk of flooding on your personal property, where the property is sitting when it comes compared base flood elevation levels in that area, and a lot of things.

This type of rate increase might be another reason to move into the private flood insurance market to find a much suitable cost of flood insurance. 

You can see the full graph of these changes below:

When Will It Happen?

Now, the date when you can adopt this program really depends if you're doing a renewal or if it's a new business policy. You see, you can expect these changes to start on October 1st and you're going to adapt to these rate changes if you're buying flood insurance from FEMA on or after that date. 

On the other hand, if you're doing a renewal with FEMA after that date then you don't have to take in these new rate changes until April 1st, 2022.

 

So, you want to be very ready for this. We've been talking about this since last year since basically the NFIP is already 30 years old already and is in need of this change. 

If you have questions on these upcoming changes, what are your flood insurance options in Alabama, or anything about flood, reach out to us through the links below. You can also watch this on our YouTube channel.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation and we want to help you understand flood risks through education and awareness in flood insurance and preparedness.

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Chris Greene