The Flood Insurance Guru Podcast Episode 18: Flood Map Updates Carroll and Dekalb County Georgia

Today, let's talk about the latest news on flood map updates for Georgia and understand how this can impact the residents of Carroll County and Dekalb County, and see what its impacts are going to be and how it will affect your flood insurance.

It's important to preface this episode that these updates will take effect on August 15th, 2019.

What Changed?

Now, when it comes to the changes, it's not really that much for Carroll, Georgia since those who are impacted are less than one percent however it's still important to mention that around 74 homeowners will have their properties or buildings moved into a high-risk flood zone. Dekalb, on the other hand, can expect 221 properties to move into the high-risk flood zone.

This could mean that if you're currently in a low-risk flood zone, where flood insurance isn't required before, you can expect your mortgage company to send you a letter saying that it's now a requirement to have flood insurance with the property that you have. This is no shocker since the NFIP and FEMA put mandatory flood policies for properties in high-risk areas.

Since the risk of flooding was reevaluated by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this can really cost you a good chunk of your dollar bills once this new flood map takes place since you're going to have to carry flood insurance for you and your building or property's safety.

Now, these high-risk flood zones may have been determined due to frequent flooding in your community. There might have been a somewhat devastating flash flood that occurred in your area and shows why you're being moved to a high-risk flood zone.

This flood map update also means that everyone who is moved into a high-risk flood zone can expect high flood insurance premiums. Now, when the time comes that you get a letter from your mortgage saying you need to have a flood insurance policy with your property, don't panic since you're going to get flood insurance options either way.

Flood Insurance Options

At the time of writing, it's important to note that these options depend on what type of loan you have. For example, if you're doing a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan, then you can only go through the NFIP since they've recently pushed back on this. However, if you're doing a different loan, then you may get your policy from private flood insurance companies.

If you're someone who has an FHA loan, this doesn't mean that you can't do something about the premium you're going to get once you apply with the NFIP. It's important to note that you can lower your premium by removing your property flood zone. This can be done by securing an elevation certificate that shows that your lowest adjacent grade is above the base flood elevation. When the NFIP and FEMA review this and they'll most likely have your property be removed from the flood map change.

If you want to avoid these high premiums, you can go through the private flood insurance market with your VA, SBA, or conventional loan since these three didn't push back on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC's) law.  You can learn more about the private flood insurance market by checking out our episode on it below.

Change can be really tough sometimes however it doesn't mean that you can't fight these changes. So, if you have any questions on your options for flood policies, flood insurance maps, flood zone changes, or anything at all, reach out to us and we'll do our best to help you out.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation and we want to help you rise above flood and protect your property's value long term so that you can have the right flood education and awareness as well to be more prepared when crap, like a major flood, happens. Feel free to click the links below to check on our daily flood education videos and contact us.