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 Utah and how they can impact your flood insurance in the future.

In today's blog, we'll talk about the Beehive State of Utah, home to the famous Great Salt Lake and famous spots for skiing. We'll go higher up on covering the flood risks in the state especially since there will be a lot of changes coming to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) with the Risk Rating 2.0.

Utah had experienced very significant flooding. I recent years, we've seen how the residents faced devastation due to the Virgin River Flood of 2010. Two years after, the Laub Reservoir Dam collapsed due to weather systems at the time causing about $3.9 million in overall damages.

It's also important to highlight that the state itself receives a lot of snow during the winter season and this may sound like the best deal ever for skiers, this presents a huge flood risk once all that snow and ice start to melt in warmer seasons causing spring runoff and spring thaw.

We want to cover one of the protection we can get in Utah when it comes to these forces of nature and understand it's effects like:

• What are the impacts on flood insurance?
• Who will be impacted?
• The good, the bad, and the ugly
• When will it happen?
  

The Risk Rating 2.0 is expected to drop on October 1st, 2021.

The NFIP 2.0

The Risk Rating 2.0, or commonly known as NFIP 2.0 as well, is more of a move of equity. This update on the federal flood insurance program itself will allow you to no longer pay more than your fair share when it comes to premiums as this would now be based on the value of your property or home starting this October. 

When it comes to the rate changes happening across the country, you're going to see these colors in ranges which represent these changes with flood insurance rates from FEMA. Now, each of these colors represents the good, the bad, and the ugly changes coming to each state.

The Good

Let's dive into the good things coming with these rate changes from FEMA. We'll show this as the green portion in the graph and it's a sight for sore eyes to see that this portion covers most of the graph.

About 53% or 2,006 policies will experience this good change. This change is good because it will get you an immediate decrease on flood insurance rates of more than $100 (>$1200 per year).

This should be something that you should take advantage of since it gives you protection from floods especially when climate change is drastically impacting how these natural disasters happen.

The Bad

Next up, we also have bad things coming with the Risk Rating 2.0. This will cover another big chunk and will be shown as the blue portion in this graph.

This will impact 44% or 1,628 policies in Utah. The bad change is because you'll be getting an increase in rates with FEMA flood policies. The increase for those impacted will be a small one however when you're paying for a relatively expensive flood insurance with FEMA, this can make or break you if you're not ready for these changes. The increase will range from $0 to $10 per month ($0 - $120 per year).

This also means that you might not even get any change on your flood insurance rates with FEMA hence the $0 per month "increase" and will have to stick on whatever you're paying for before the NFIP 2.0 happened.

The Ugly

Lastly, let's cover the last portions of the upcoming changes to Utah. We'll show this as the pink and grey portions.

The pink portion will cover about 2% or 81 policies in the state. This is the first part of this ugly change because this time around the increase will be significantly bigger and more certain. The increase this time around will range from $10 to $20 per month ($120 - $240 per year).

On the other hand, you have the grey portion which covers only 1% or 40 policies however it's notable that this will be an uglier change for these policyholders. If you're part of this 1%, you're going to start to pay for FEME rates with an increase that's more than $20 per month (>$240 per year). This also means that the possibility of getting a $100 per month increase or more (>$1200 per year) is not out of the picture.

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. Some would even say that the current NFIP ways are already outdated which really begs for this Risk Rating 2.0 to happen.

If you have questions on these upcoming changes, what are your flood insurance options in Utah, 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.