The Build Back Better Act has been going back and forth on whether or not it aims to tax the higher-earning households or not. A lot of things are coming with President Biden's expansive social and environmental bill that aims to create a better quality of life for families across the United States. This includes providing and helping American families during crisis especially after what we experienced due to COVID-19 and addressing climate change impacts to our communities.

In the midst of the shape-shifting nature of political parties, the initial intent to address the risks and dangers of climate change is being scaled down. We won't dwell into the politics of it all despite it having a firm grip on how Build Back Better goes; that's a story for another day.

Will Build Back Better really build a better structure against climate change and really address the needs of our country's first line of defense against floods? Is Build Back Better just building a broken flood future for America?

What Build Back Better Includes

In the article of MSNBC on explaining the coverages of this act, they covered the following: $380 Billion will be for Child Care and Education, $555 Billion will be for Climate Change and Clean Energy Investments; this generally covers the $12,500 incentive for those looking to buy an electric car like Tesla or install solar panels. Capping prescription drugs costs at $2,000 per year for seniors as well as including Medicare coverage for hearing benefits, and $200 Billion for child tax credit extension to name a few.

However, as the bill was passed a lot of things got changed such as taking out the dental and vision coverage, free community college, lower prescription drug costs, and the paid family leave which was something that public polls were really hoping for.

The changes also include a significant scaling down of funding for the risk mitigation for climate change which is, to be honest, what Build Back Better was for.

Does Build Back Better Include Flood Risk?

Flood Map

We want to focus on the significant changes on how Build Back Better addresses one of the key concerns with climate change and safeties of families across the country: the federal flood insurance.

Build Back Better was initially drafted to cover $3 Trillion to ensure that all items are ticked by dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's, but across its 12-week course, a lot of things were cut down and only about $1.75 billion was approved by the senate. Simply put, this meant that some areas' overall costs were also lowered.

Initially, the original Build Back Better draft provided $3 Billion to improve the flood mapping hence addressing the overall understanding of the flood hazard of communities with or without an extreme event like disasters, hurricanes, and things like that. This proposed amount intends to create a system in which federal flood insurance will be able to provide you and your community with updated flood risks based on the flood mapping.

You might be thinking, this number's too big just to address flood mapping in which we would say the Association of State Floodplain Managers stated that FEMA would need between $3 billion and $12 billion to address this concern with flood mapping across the country.

This intends to prepare for the impacts of climate change especially with the frequency of flooding and its severity. With this funding, flood hazard mapping will not only address your current flood risk but also your future flood risk. This can really be helpful especially for disadvantaged communities who don't even have a flood map. In some cases, some flood maps take 15 years to get updated.

According to E&E News, the approved bill ended up cutting down the funding for this area to $600 million. That amount is just 20% of the proposed costs needed to make sure that flood mapping will be accurate and up-to-date.

It's important to keep in mind that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) don't have a flood map for all and communities across the United States. The impact of cutting down the funding for this area can mean that your community will still have to wait a year or maybe even more just to get a flood map that reflects your current flood risks.

Additionally, what officials should know is that flood maps are crucial in understanding where the water is coming from. This also helps everyone understand where and how to build developments as this direct changes how floodwater behaves especially for vulnerable communities like those surrounded by rivers or the coasts.

The thing is flood hazard mapping isn't just for everyone to know their flood zones for flood insurance, but also to understand first the risk of flooding in the area.

Flood Insurance Premiums

Another area of flood insurance that Build Back Better wanted to address is allotting $1 Billion for subsidizing flood insurance premium cost within the federal flood market. This intends to allow low-and-moderate income households to be able to buy flood insurance from FEMA and the NFIP. 

Generally, flood insurance with FEMA and the NFIP averages at about $1,000 per year, and with the Risk Rating 2.0 Program, this number can get more expensive for policies. It's important to keep in mind that a lot of people who aren't required to get flood insurance don't buy one because of its costs.

This funding helps get the program running and helps people understand that the cost of flood insurance can be cheap without the risks of not getting enough coverages. A lot of homeowners would be buying cheap flood insurance, not knowing that it won't fit their coverage needs. People do this to avoid the well-known affordability costs with FEMA and the NFIP.

However, this funding for the financial assistance when purchasing a federal flood insurance policy was also cut down to $600 million as well. 

The Future of NFIP

Looking at the bright side of the fence, it's still a good thing that federal flood insurance will still be included in the conversation as we move forward with the Build Back Better act.

Despite the funding being significantly scaled-down, this additional funding for FEMA and the NFIP can address the issues within the federal side of flood insurance. However, this action of scaling down what the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) really needs makes one ask...

When will flood risk become a priority for the government? For now, only time can tell as the Senate modifies this part of Build Back Better.

If you have any questions on how this will impact you, about your flood insurance, or maybe your flood insurance is trash and you want to update, click below to contact us.

You can also access our Flood Learning Center where we try to answer your common questions about floods, flood insurance, and everything in between.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation which lets us help you understand your flood risks, flood insurance, and mitigating your property long-term.

Homeowners across the country are faced with a lot of insurance policies needed to sustain their property and homes. This ranges from your standard homeowners' insurance policy to other damage insurances. 

Today, we want to address one of the most common questions with insurance that homeowners usually ask. Does water backup insurance cover flooding?

What is Water Backup?

First thing's first, we have to address the actual definition of what a water backup is. Generally, water backup pertains to the incident(s) when something blocks or stops the natural flow of drains from the pipes that exit your home. This could be sewer backups that are clogged due to debris, overflow of rainwater, or when a sump pump fails so it forces water into your home.

Basically, the water that's coming from your home but failed to get out. This area covers things like septic systems, sump pumps, and/or sewer systems. This time of damage actually has coverage from your insurance however do you still need flood insurance when you're already covered for water backup coverage?

Is Flood Insurance Necessary?

To understand the difference between these two coverages, we first need to go back and understand what floods actually are. Generally, flooding is any incident where surface water from outside of your home inundates your property. This may be due to a storm, continuous heavy rainfall, or coastal flooding.

You might say that they should be covered within a single policy since they are both water damages to your property or home. However, it's important to keep in mind that these two things are different coverages.

Even if you already have water backup coverage, unfortunately, this won't really get you covered if we're talking about flood damage. This also means that flood insurance won't cover you for water backup since most insurance companies in the industry will be considering that "Rule of Two".

The rule of two on flooding, according to FEMA, states that surface water will only be considered a "flood" if it impacts at least two acres of normally dry land or two properties within the same area. Considering that water backup has a smaller scale which only impacts a single homeowner, it doesn't really fall into the coverage of flood.

Now, let's talk about your flood insurance options.

Flood Insurance Options

The NFIP

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is purely managed by the federal government since this is FEMA's answer to flood insurance. An NFIP flood policy can get you flood coverage on both your dwelling and the contents within it.

When we say dwelling, this simply pertains to either the residential property or commercial building that you're trying to insure with NFIP and FEMA; contents will be more about the personal property and items you have inside the insured building.

There is a coverage limit when it comes to federal flood policies. Flood damage to buildings will be covered to a maximum of $250,000 for residential policies and can only go up to $500,000 maximum if it's for a commercial property. Regardless of the type of property you have written, you can expect to get a $100,000 maximum contents coverage from an NFIP policy.

READ: National Flood Insurance Program Risk Rating 2.0 Update

There's also what's called the Increased Cost of Compliance (ICC) coverage. This is a $30,000 additional coverage for your property in order to make sure that there are flood mitigation efforts made on the property according to the federal government's standards.

Generally, this can include sandbagging your property, installing floodproofing walls, raising your lowest floor from the base flood elevation levels, and putting flood openings. The labor that goes into making these mitigation efforts happen will also be covered under the ICC.

There are also perks with your participating community. A participating community gets access to federal flood insurance and disaster assistance by meeting their standards on flood mitigation and disaster preparedness. The efforts put in by a community won't be unnoticed as this can help on raising your Community Rating System (CRS) score.

The CRS measures and rewards the overall flood mitigation efforts done by the community according to FEMA's standards on floodplain management. Simply put, the higher your CRS score is, the bigger the flood insurance discount you'll get from FEMA and the NFIP.

You can start enjoying your NFIP policy after a 30-day waiting period from the flood insurance purchase.

The Private Flood

If the federal flood insurance option doesn't really work for you then you can manage this new floodplain mapping through the private flood insurance market. It's important to note that this market will solely be managed and provided by private insurance companies which generally means that the red tapes FEMA and NFIP has to go through won't be there.

The first thing you'll immediately see with the private flood market is that there are significantly shorter waiting periods for your flood policy. Once you have everything settled and paid for, the wait period for the private flood carriers will follow a much shorter timeframe compared to NFIP. A private flood insurance policy can take effect on 7 or up to 14 days maximum. 

Another good thing coming out of private flood insurance is that there are no coverage limits. This means that you won't really need to stress over how to get covered for a $500,000 home since it will be fully covered by your policy. This is the same with contents coverage and you'll also get additional coverages like replacement costs, additional living expenses, and loss of use.

Fair warning, it's a known issue in the private insurance market in general that they will do moratoriums when there are risks that are too high for their comforts.

This simply means that they will either put a stop or take a break from providing flood insurance policies to a certain area that has higher risks. There's also a chance that you might not get to buy flood insurance from them once they decide to non-renew your policy.

What Really Matters

Understanding your insurance coverage from a homeowners insurance policy, renters insurance policy, water backup insurance, and flood insurance is the key to ensuring that you bounce back from any possible damages due to natural disasters or lack of maintenance. You want to get yourself a good insurance agent who can help you explain these coverages and how they differ.

If you have any questions about flood insurance, insurance coverages, or anything related to floods, click the link below to access our Flood Learning Center where we try to answer your questions on flood insurance and beyond.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation and we want to help you understand flood risks, your flood insurance, and mitigating your property long-term. 

We're getting close to Thanksgiving, but something that we wouldn't be thankful for is all the rain and flooding that we are getting. This unpredictable weather has some areas of Washington for example in drought, but somehow the places that don't need rain got all of them at once.

Today, we want to talk about the recent flooding that's going on around Washington County and also understand how this can impact flood insurance in the state especially with the Risk Rating 2.0 program taking place.

November Flooding in Washington

A category-5 atmospheric river hit the Northwestern region of the United States which caused a lot of flooding, especially in the Washington area. 75% of homes had water damage due to this event at the time of writing. The overall weather event raised the November amount to 6.83 inches of rainfall in Seattle alone as stated by Madie Kristell from the National Weather Service (NWS). The normal rainfall amount in the area during this month maxes at 6.3 inches.

About 500 properties in Whatcom County were displaced by severe flooding during this incident which prompted search and rescue efforts to ensure the safety of residents. At the time of writing, this flooding, unfortunately, cost a death on Highway 99 due to the mudslides happening in the area. and at least 2 persons are still missing.

Mudslides and flooding also caused a lot of trouble for commuters as the Interstate 5 highway was closed immediately after multiple reports of these mudslides and floods impacting the road conditions from the continuous heavy rain. 

Areas like Mount Vernon in Skagit County also received a flood warning just after receiving 2 to 4 inches of rain. Mount Vernon is also expected to get an increased amount of water as rainfall amounts can average 4 inches of rain in the next five days. This is also with the threat of major river flooding events in Skagit County as the Skagit River easily topped its major flood stage of 32 feet and is expected to go as high as 38 feet in the upcoming days of the week.

Although flash flood watch is canceled for Burlington, Sedro-Woolley, Mount Vernon, and Anacortes, Governor Jay Inslee continued to issue an emergency proclamation for fourteen other counties in Washington. The counties included in this emergency proclamation are as follows:

• Clallam County
• Grays Harbor County
• Island County
• Jefferson County
• Lewis County
• King County
• Kitsap County
• Pierce County
• Mason County
• San Juan County
• Skagit County
• Snohomish County
• Thurston County
• Whatcom County

These severe weather conditions also caused a lot of problems in the power infrastructure. As of 9:30 PM yesterday, at least 70,000 residents lost power in the Washington area.

Right now, we might even see widespread flooding in areas that are new the Ferndale downstream and the Skokomish River which at 16.5 feet can cause a lot of water to go into pasture lands to West Bourgault Road.

How This Impacts Flood Insurance

Federal Flood Insurance

We're currently moving into fully adopting the new Risk Rating 2.0 program from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and although we're still in the first phase which mostly impacts new business flood policies, it's still important to note that everyone that has flood insurance through the NFIP will still get impacted by this weather event.

First, it's important to note that if you're one of the properties that got inundated with water — regardless of minor flooding or severe flooding — this data will still be collected and considered in your new flood insurance rates with Risk Rating 2.0. This applies to both new business and renewals which is phase 2 where everyone who has FEMA flood insurance will adopt the new rating structure of the NFIP.

This flood will be taken into account because one of the variables that determine your flood risk score, which equally impacts your premium rates, is flood frequency and type of floods.

Another thing you want to take into account also is the impacts when you make a flood claim during this time. Although FEMA will basically hit that hard reset button and have everyone start with a clean slate when it comes to flood claims history.

The claim variable is the new Risk Rating 2.0 system in which everyone will basically go back to zero with the Risk Rating 2.0 however once you file a new flood insurance claim under the new program, FEMA will do a 20-year lookback and count the claims you've made during that timeframe. The number of your flood claims made within the last twenty years will be your claim variable score.

These are just a few of the things that will surely have an impact on your flood insurance due to this flooding that happened in Washington. You can see the overall changes in rates in Washington state through our Risk Rating 2.0 blog by clicking here.

Private Flood Insurance

This weather event and the flooding it brought isn't just going to impact those who have federal flood insurance and to be honest, the same can be said for those who are getting flood policies through private insurance carriers.

Although private flood doesn't necessarily need to follow all those changes with a rating from FEMA's Risk Rating 2.0, this type of flooding event still has significant impacts on policyholders in this market.

One of the most significant impacts of flooding, when you have a private flood insurance policy, is how your increased risks due to recent floods can cause these flood insurance companies to back out from your providing your community flood insurance. Generally, this happens only on a small scale where some homeowners won't be able to buy flood insurance from the private market however sometimes these companies can go on full moratoriums.

Moratoriums in the private market generally mean that you won't have the private flood insurance option for your whole community, city, or county because of risk for flooding in the area got a significant increase in recent times. With the Risk Rating 2.0, this type of impact can be very expensive since you will no longer have the option to get cheaper premium rates through the private market.

Equally, filing a flood insurance claim in a private flood policy can also reduce your chances to get flood insurance from them again. The private market is known to have the choice to non-renew your policy with them. Non-renewals are generally something we see seldom with federal flood insurance and in most cases, it doesn't happen at all. 

Regardless of how this weather event will impact you when it comes to flood insurance, we should always put first safety. One of the reasons why we strongly encourage getting flood insurance is to easily remove that worry that you may have when flooding happens where you will lose the things you value most. The right flood insurance policy can easily cover these things for you, so you want to get one.

Equally, finding safety and security for your home as well as everything inside of it is less important compared to your safety. If there is an announcement that you need to evacuate an area, we highly encourage you to do so and avoid gambling with the risks. Floods are very unpredictable and are highly deadly.

If you have more questions about this flooding event in the northwest region, how flood insurance can protect you, and how to be safe in this type of situation, click the links below to reach us or look at our Flood Learning Center where we try to answer all of your flood-related questions in just a few clicks.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation which lets us help you understand flood risks, your flood insurance, and protecting your property's value long-term.

We're officially in the last quarter of this rollercoaster of a year, and things will be changing like the turn of a season when it comes to the flood insurance industry.

Today, a lot of things had already happened such as Tulsa, Oklahoma topping the Community Rating System (CRS) ranking with a Class 1 Rating, Both Pinellas County in Florida and Charlotte in North Carolina moving up to Class 3, and more importantly, today marks the first phase of the new Risk Rating 2.0 program.

We want to unpack the ten things you need to keep in mind about the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Risk Rating 2.0.

Effective Dates

When it comes to the Federal Management Emergency Agency (FEMA) and their updates, generally this only follows two specific dates in a year. This would go the same for their new federal flood insurance program, the Risk Rating 2.0.

Generally, the Risk Rating 2.0 will have two effective dates depending on your policy. October 1st, 2021, will impact mostly new business flood insurance policies or basically homes that are buying flood insurance for the first time with FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This is what we'd call "Phase 1".

On the other hand, let's say you're a homeowner who's already doing a policy with FEMA and the NFIP, then you aren't required to adapt to this new program since any renewal policy can start moving into Risk Rating 2.0 on April 1st, 2022. This is what we'd call "Phase 2" and by this time, FEMA is expecting that every policyholder will be in the Risk Rating 2.0 program.

Coverages

When it comes to coverages, it's important to note that there will be no change at the time of writing. We might see some adjustments in the future, but for now, Risk Rating 2.0 still offers the same coverage for a standard flood insurance policy.

Building coverage for residential properties will max out at $250,000 and can go as high as $500,000 for commercial properties. Regardless of the property type, there will also be a $100,000 flood insurance coverage for the contents or personal property within the insured building.

The NFIP will also retain certain programs from the legacy or previous version which are the Increased Cost of Compliance (ICC) and the Additional Living Expenses (ALE). The ICC will be an additional $30,000 coverage that your community can apply for to get excess coverage in order to further expand and/or improve flood mitigation efforts.

On the other hand, the ALE will only be available if there's a presidential declaration and this can help you cover the expenses of living in a motel as your property is getting repaired.

Wait Periods

Another thing that's staying the same with federal flood insurance is their wait periods. This covers things like the exact wait period before your policy can take effect on your insured property with FEMA and the NFIP.

Since things will be staying the same on this topic, there will still be that 30-day waiting period after the flood insurance purchase before the policy can take effect on your property. There is some exception to this rule however such as:

• If your building is newly designated in a high-risk Special Flood Hazard Area, and you buy flood insurance within the 13-month period following a map revision: One-day waiting period.
• If you buy flood insurance in connection with making, increasing, extending, or renewing your mortgage loan: No waiting period.
• If you select additional insurance as an option on your flood insurance policy renewal bill: No waiting period.
• If your property is affected by flooding on burned federal land, and the policy is purchased within 60 days of the fire-containment: Possible waiver of the waiting period.

Policy Assumptions

Now, this is the last remnant from the legacy program that will be staying with Risk Rating 2.0. Policy assumption or policy transfer is the ability of a property owner to pass their flood insurance policy to the new owner after the property's sale.

In the legacy program, this helps the new property owner lock in whatever the rates or flood insurance premiums and coverage among other things that the previous owner had. This changes with Risk Rating 2.0 as there might be up to an 18% rate increase when you do a policy assumption.

This increase is due to the fact that FEMA and the NFIP want the new owner to make sure that they secure a full-risk policy where the overall premium equals the risk of flooding that the property is facing.

Elevation Certificates

We're now moving into the things that are significantly changing when it comes to flood insurance pricing methodology with the Risk Rating 2.0. One of these big changes is that elevation certificates will no longer be required to determine the overall flood insurance premium rates on your property.

This means that you won't need to spend more cash on an elevation certificate to get flood insurance however it can be very helpful if you have one. An elevation certificate will be used to get a more defined and accurate representation of your property's construction such as the height of the first floor from the ground. This type of information may directly cause significant decreases to the property that you're insuring with FEMA and the NFIP.

If you have an elevation certificate, then it's best to have it sent to FEMA and the NFIP when you apply or renew your flood insurance as this can impact your rates for the better. If not, they won't require you to get one even if you're in the special flood hazard area (SFHA).

Flood Zones

Another thing that won't impact your premium is flood zones. Flood zones will now be used solely as a regulatory reference for flood insurance. In the legacy program, flood zones directly affect whether or not your premium increases with FEMA and the NFIP; this, in turn, became a burden for those who are in the SFHA or are moved into one.

In Risk Rating 2.0, flood zones will only tell FEMA if you're required to get flood insurance or not depending on your flood zone designation in your local flood insurance rate map (FIRM). We could say that being in a high-risk flood zone doesn't mean your premiums will be significantly higher than those in the low-risk flood zone.

Rebuilding Costs

The Risk Rating 2.0 will be adding a new rating factor to flood insurance and that's the overall costs in order to rebuild the insured structure. This means that more expensive houses can see higher rates compared to cheaper houses.

This also means that overinsuring a property will also increase your flood premiums with the Risk Rating 2.0. Underinsuring, on the other hand, might get lower your premiums however this means that you will not get coverage for 100% of your property.

This rating change will be the one to ask you or your insurance agents to provide the most accurate value of the property as well as how much it would cost to rebuild it in the event that the property was inundated by flood.

You can say that property characteristics in the Risk Rating 2.0 took the place of flood zones in the legacy program.

Property Elevation & Lowest Habitable Floor

Another new thing coming into play when it comes to assessing your property's flood risk is its elevation and the lowest habitational floor or lowest livable floor. 

Risk Rating 2.0 will also look at some flood mitigation practices made on that insured property when it comes to the final premium rate on your property. It's important to emphasize that actions like elevating the lowest livable floor of homes can really take you further away from the base-flood elevation levels in your area.

What's the difference between these two? Well, for one, the property elevation pertains to the overall offset or adjustment of the property compared to its original height. This mostly pertains to maybe adding a foot from the grade (ground) before the actual lowest habitational floor.

The lowest habitational floor pertains to any area of your home that is livable, so if you have a gaming area in your basement and it's underground, this will be considered as your lowest habitational floor even if you raise your property 3 feet.

It's important that the lowest habitational floor may take a good chunk on the cost of flood insurance with the Risk Rating 2.0 as this is the area where most flood damage occurs.

Types of Flooding

Another new factor coming to the Risk Rating methodology is the types of flooding that had occurred, occurs, or might occur on your property. This type of flood study will involve some cutting-edge technology to do a look back on the history of floods in your local community.

Since Risk Rating 2.0 mostly focuses on the overall flood risk that your property faces in order to determine flood policies rates, types of flood will be one of the greatest tools to help this case.

Generally, we can sort types of flooding into three separate categories: pluvial, fluvial, and coastal.

Pluvial flooding is any type of flood that is a result of rainfall, so you can put here flash flooding and standing water. On the other hand, fluvial flooding is also known as river flooding wherein the cause of the flood is due to a river, creek, lake, or stream rising causing water to redirect to communities. Lastly, coastal flooding pertains to floods that are caused by storm surges and coastal erosion which mostly occurs if you reside near the beach.

This risk rating factor will also take into account the flood insurance policyholder's flood frequency or generally how often your property gets flooded when it comes to finalizing the cost of flood insurance with the NFIP.

Distance to Water

Lastly, the NFIP and FEMA will also take into account the insured property's distance to a body of water. In the legacy program or the previous traditional NFIP flood insurance, this is mostly concerning how far or near your property is from the coast.

Risk Rating 2.0 changes this and makes sure that the cost of flood insurance will also take into account the property's distance to any water source. This means that if you have a dried-up creek in your backyard, you might see an increase when it comes to rates since this creek increases your flood risk.

Generally, the closer your property is to any water source, the higher your premium can be since this type of water source is generally known to bring flooding to an area.

Risk Rating 2.0

These are the ten things you need to know before you jump into the Risk Rating 2.0 program. Overall, this change is long overdue and we might even say that it's still not addressing the concerns of flood insurance. Credit where it's due, this is a better representation of flood insurance compared to the legacy program as we can now address the actual flood risk of a property.

If you have any more questions on Risk Rating 2.0, how to buy flood insurance, your flood insurance options, or anything related to floods, click below to reach out to us or check out our flood learning center.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation which lets us help you understand your flood risks, flood insurance, and mitigating your property long-term.

As we move into the biggest changes coming to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) with the upcoming Risk Rating 2.0 Program, Tulsa City in Oklahoma clutched the game with a buzzer-beater of achievement when it comes to federal flood insurance.

Today, we want to talk about what the recent Community Rating System (CRS) score change in Tulsa impacts flood insurance premiums for its locals.

Flooding and Oklahoma

At the time of writing, the South Central parts of the country including Oklahoma are facing a lot of rain as storm fronts stalled in the area. This weather condition adding up to the drought that Oklahoma is experiencing is one messy cocktail when it comes to flood.

When there's a drought, you can think of rain as water hitting hard cement. The soil won't be able to suck all this water in thus causing it to redirect to low-lying areas. In turn, this means that no one is safe when it comes to flooding.

However, this might not be a big of a concern when it comes to Tulsa since the local government and the community itself did a power move when it comes to flood mitigation by raising the city's community rating system.

But first, what is the Community Rating System (CRS)?

CRS Saves Lives Like CPR

The Community Rating System (CRS) is what we'd like to call the double-edged sword to flood insurance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This is generally due to the fact this system created by the federal government encourages people to buy flood insurance and lowers the overall risk of flooding of property by rewarding a participating community with discounts to flood insurance rates.

Basically, this means that the more flood mitigation is done by a community, the higher the discount is for their policyholders. This is why both the federal government, private flood, and even our team encourages actions or measures for flood damage reduction. You get to save your property and avoid substantial damage to your safety and property while lowering your rates with your flood policy.

Activities in the Community Rating System are organized in four main categories: public information, mapping and regulations, flood damage reduction, and warning and response. Stormwater management, drainage system maintenance, and floodplain development regulations

This discount can really save policyholders a lot of money since it goes up to a 45% discount if the community gets the highest class rating. Based on the flood mitigation measures made by the participating community or city, you will be categorized ranging from Class 10, being the lowest and having no discount, to Class 1, being the highest with a 45% discount on flood premiums. This type of discount is significantly better if we were to compare it to other insurance companies in the private market.

This program is significantly helpful since it allows more people to get into federal flood insurance and save themselves from empty wallets or debt especially in this COVID-19 pandemic scene.

What did Tulsa do and what reward did they achieve with this?

Tulsa Gets Rating Class 1 in CRS

Now, back on the topic of Tulsa City in Oklahoma where the local community was able to secure the Class 1 Rating with their CRS. This means that flood insurance with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and FEMA will have a 45% discount for both old and new policyholders. This is also inclusive of the standard flood insurance coverages for residential, commercial, and even rental properties. Tulsa is one of two cities in the whole country that achieve this rating score; the other being Roseville, California.

It's notable to mention that at the time of writing, Oklahoma averages about $950 when it comes to flood insurance premium rates. With this move up to a higher class rating with the CRS, flood insurance premium rates will get a discount of at least $430 based on the average.

It's important to mention however that once we move into the new Risk Rating 2.0 program, we're going to see a slight increase with most areas in the state of Oklahoma. Regardless, this new CRS score will still be applicable to that. Considering that Tulsa is covered by multiple counties such as Osage County, Rogers County, Wagoner County, and Tulsa County, the 45% discount on flood premiums will impact a lot of people in a great way.

At the time of writing, about 70% of the city will be getting a slight increase of up to $10 per month (up to $120 per year) in premium rates and about 8.8% of policyholders will get more than $10 per month increase (more than $120 per year).

This type of effort of the people not only reduces the resident's overall flood damage and risk for flooding but also ensures that everyone will be able to get protection through flood insurance with FEMA and the NFIP.

What We Learned From This

Each year, flood insurance costs seem to only get higher and higher and in some areas, this can cause a lot of people to be discouraged in buying flood insurance at the expense of their safety and security against flood damage.

With programs like the Community Rating System lowering flood insurance when people take flood mitigation measures really help a lot of people and their local governments find encouragement in exerting effort into lessening the damages that flood brings to properties. Property owners don't just ensure their properties with flood insurance but start to mitigating their properties.

This type of reinforcement helps the case of all homeowners and business owners across the country especially when we're still living in a time where a lot of people underestimate how deadly floods can be.

It's safe to say that we should follow the steps done by Tulsa City in ensuring that they make the most out of flood insurance.

If you have any questions on flood insurance discounts, FEMA flood policies, flood insurance options in Oklahoma, or anything related to floods, click below to reach out to us or access our flood learning center.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation which lets us help you understand your flood risks, flood insurance, and mitigating your property long-term.