Episode 157: College Sports, NCAA, and NFIP Probation: What Does it Mean for Your Flood Insurance?

The National Flood Insurance Program has very beneficial to many communities across the United States. There are expectations that have to be met and when they are not communities have to be held accountable.

Let's use a an example where a community is a college sports program and the NCAA is the National Flood Insurance Program.

As we have seen in the last 10 years when college sports programs do not follow the NCAA rules they are held accountable. This generally means probation consisting of losing scholarships and even post season ban. If the violations are bad enough like they were for SMU many years ago it could mean the death penalty, where the program is actually completely shut down.

So like college sports teams what happens when these communities do not follow the rules?

Well this is when probation can come into play

In this episode of the flood insurance guru podcast we will discuss what exactly NFIP probation is, how does it impact flood insurance and can it be a good thing?

First let's talk about some of those rules. The National Flood Insurance Program has strict flood plain management guidelines that have to be followed. One reason is to protect the residents of this community and have a nationwide standard.

A common guideline that does not get followed many times is having the right permits to repair flood damaged properties. Sometimes communities will want to try to help their residents get back on their feet as soon as possible. In doing so sometimes the right permits are not required for work on flooded properties or even new development.

What happens is FEMA can audit these permits up to three years and if they see the right permits were not used they can put a community on probation until the right guidelines are followed.

This period generally will last a year or until a community can show that the right corrections have been made.

So what does this mean for your flood insurance?

The good news is if its just probation it normally means an additional $50 surcharge on your National Flood Insurance Program policy.

However if the guidelines are not followed FEMA can decide to suspend a communities National Flood Insurance Program status. This means that flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program and disaster assistance is no longer available to the community.

So can probation really be a good thing for a community?

If a community has been suspended from the National Flood Insurance Program for a while and decides to reapply then the community maybe given probation status. The benefit of this is it gives residents of the community access to flood insurance and disaster assistance.

So maybe you live in a community that is either suspended or on probation status and you want to know what your flood insurance are available? Then make sure to visit our website. You can also check out our daily flood education videos on our YouTube channel.