Flood Insurance Over the Pond

In today's blog we're going to be talking about over the pond and flood insurance.

If you've got questions about flood insurance, flood education or floods zone changes, then make sure to visit our website.

Today's topic on our blog actually comes from my good friend, Jason Cass over at Agency intelligence. He had a really great sales trainer on his podcast. He was from the UK and they were joking about over the pond, but it got me to start thinking about over the pond and something we see every day. It's something that we really want to address to help you understand flood risk.

If you live around a pond, if you live around a Lake, or maybe even live on a river, then you know flood insurance rates are different from one property to the next. This is what we want to discuss today.

So imagine this, you live on the Tennessee river in Florence, Alabama, or you live  on Smith Lake in Arley, Alabama, Jasper, Alabama or Cullman, Alabama.

Your neighbors got a $500 flood insurance rate, but you have a $2,000 flood insurance rate when you're right next door to each other.

You know, we hear from people all the time to say, hey, I'm at the same elevation. Why are rates so different?

You know, a lot of this has to do with flood maps, topography, elevation, and location.

We want to talk about a customer situation we had about year and a half ago in Florence, Alabama. The customer was paying about $2,000 a year for flood insurance had been told that he couldn't fight against FEMA and that he couldn't dispute his flood zone. So he just kind of accepted it. The only problem was the difference between his boathouse and his primary residence was about 80 feet up a hill.

This was also 80 feet above the base flood elevation. Remember the base flood elevation is the level that FEMA fills that flooding could come to.

You can learn more about what is base flood elevation here.

If you are above the base flood elevation, maybe your premium doesn't match your risk. That's one of the things we specialize in here at the flood insurance guru, it's making sure your premium equals the right risk.

That's what we're looking at today when it comes to the ponds, your house, and your neighbors. Making sure that those levels are correct.

Maybe an elevation certificate does make sense to get, maybe it doesn't.

Looking at private flood insurance we see a big difference.

Private companies and the national flood insurance program use different factors right now. Because of this, they can give different rates.

Residence type could also have a big impact on flood insurance rates through the National Flood Insurance Program.

Maybe that property is a secondary residence and they've got through the national flood insurance program, which means they're paying a surcharge. Many private companies do not charge this surcharge.

So when you are looking at flood insurance look at two things

1. Private flood insurance options
2. Mitigation

Not every rate is going to be the same and not every risk is going to be the same. This is where private flood insurance options maybe up to 40% cheaper.

Mitigation can also have a big impact on flood insurance rates.

So when it comes to these things, if you've got questions about flood insurance over the pond, if you've got questions about flooded insurance for your Lake home, or maybe a home on the river, then click here.

Remember we have an educational background of flood mitigation, which means we're here to help you understand your flood risks, your flood insurance, and mitigate your property.

If you want more information on flood education and flood insurance, make sure to visit our website. and also check out our YouTube channel where we do these daily foot education videos. And then you can also check out our podcast, which has flood insurance guru.