What is an elevation certificate and do I need one?

Flood insurance can be scary especially with lack of educational resources. Generally when someone goes to get a flood quote they are told sorry we have to have an elevation certificate.  The customer pays the $500 to get an elevation certificate and then the quote is through the roof.

In so many of these situations the money is wasted on the elevation certificate while in fact the customer could have been told the certificate would not change the rate. In some situations the certificate would improve the rate, however generally when looking at 500 year flood zones if there is no base flood elevation then the certificate will not change anything.

The reason is the point of the elevation certificate is to see where your home sits in relation to the base flood elevation, so if there isn't one there is nothing to compare it to. Also when looking at the private market compared to NFIP elevation certificates generally are not required.

This is one of the reasons why we recommend reaching out to the flood insurance guru to examine the situation first before wasting the money. Having a background in flood mitigation they can really analyze every situation for you especially in non coastal areas. They also serve all 50 states on flood education.