Will Raising My Home Help Flood Insurance Rates?

Flood insurance premiums can quickly get out of control and people are always looking for ways to minimize these premiums. We want to talk about one major way people are doing this, which is raising a home.

Raising the Standard

Raising a property can be very expensive but areas like New Jersey and Houston Texas have shown us that this could have helped minimize flood damage. Its not unusual for it to cost $100,000 to raise a home. Many people would think that there is no way that this could ever pay for itself, but there are FEMA mitigation grants that can help.

Let's compare a couple of things the average amount of disaster assistance and the average amount of flood insurance paid out during Hurricane Harvey. On disaster assistance an average of $4000 was paid out and on flood insurance the average amount paid out was $140,000. That's just one flood disaster what about areas that see this situation over and over again. As you can imagine raising a home could quickly pay for itself especially in coastal areas like Galveston Texas and areas like major rivers like Memphis, Saint Louis, and Des Moines.

It's Not That Simple

Raising a home just isn't that simple. As mentioned before it can be pricey but then there is also the guidelines. For example if your property has flooded then you could get a portion of this paid for as long as the policy limits on the National Flood Insurance Policy are not exceeded. 

Raising the Expectations

Each foundation type has its own guidelines, in addition servicing equipment needs to be disconnected before starting the process. It also needs to be determined how much to raise the property. You will want to make sure that the lowest finished floor is as far above the base flood elevation as possible. When raising the home it would also be recommended to be on piers, posts, or enclosures. This would keep water moving underneath the home preventing hydraulic pressure from building up and causing serious foundation damage.

Raising a home can be stressful with the costs and different guidelines. If you have further questions about the impact this could have on your flood insurance premiums please visit our website Flood Insurance Guru. You can also check out our YouTube channel or Facebook page The Flood Insurance Guru where we do daily flood educational videos as well as our weekly podcast The Flood Guru.