How Can Additions To A Home Hurt Property Values and Flood Insurance?

Additions can add a lot of value to a home and it can also hurt a home when it comes to flood insurance. Many times the addition of a home can take a home from being in a low risk flood zone to a high risk flood zone. We are going to briefly discuss how all this happens.
 
When it comes to adding value to a home additions is an easy way to do that. However if you are not careful you could place the property into a high risk flood zone. Here is how additions and substantial improvements work when it comes to flood insurance. When either an addition or more than 40% of a property is improved within one give year then you have to use that year as the year built for flood insurance.
 
For example lets say you have a prefirm structure which is a structure built for the first flood map when the addition is put on the home you have to use whatever year the addition was put on as the year built now. This can have a huge impact as prefirm and post firm structures have different guidelines and rating models.
 
When looking at adding this addition you want to contact a surveyor to make sure that when you add the new structure it does not move the structure from a low risk flood zone to a high risk flood zone. This could lower the value of the home instead of increasing it and even making it harder to sell.

If you have questions about how a possible addition to a home could impact your flood insurance rates please reach out to The Flood Insurance guru. To learn more about flood insurance visit our website www.floodinsuranceguru.com.