What is IHP and How Can It Help Me Get More Out of My Flood Insurance?

Today we are discussing the Individuals and Households Program and other needs assistance. What is the program? How does it relate to flood insurance? We're going to talk about a few of those things today.

First of all, the Individuals and Households Program, also known as IHP, provides assistance to individuals and households affected by disaster to enable them to address necessary expenses and serious needs which cannot be met through other forms of disaster assistance or insurance. Forms of other needs other IHP include personal property or contents coverage, medical, dental, and funeral. Yes, the IHP does provide funeral expenses after a disaster. It also helps with those dental expenses and medical expenses.

So who's eligible for IHP? What if you had flood insurance? What if you didn't? We want to talk a little bit about that. Whether you have flood insurance or not, you're still going to have the resource of the IHP available because insurance is not going to cover everything. while the Individuals and Households Program Assistance is not designed to make you whole again, it is designed to provide some source of resource for you. Now, generally, you could get up to $30,000 through this program. However, most of the time, what's paid out is usually around a max of 8000.

So let's just talk about some conditions that make you eligible for this program. First of all, you must have losses in an area that has been declared a disaster by the President of the United States. As you may know, with flood insurance, not all flood areas have presidential disaster declarations. So if you don't have that presidential disaster declaration, then the Individuals and Households program is not going to kick into place.

You also have to have disaster related necessary expenses or serious needs. So what are some of these necessary expenses or serious needs? Well, let's talk about the National Flood Insurance Program a little bit. It generally covers the building and it covers contents coverage, but it's not going to cover additional living expenses. So some of these additional living expenses are going to be considered necessary expenses because your house is unlivable. So you've got to have somewhere else to live at the time. You may also have serious needs like medical needs if you're a diabetic or  if you have to make trips to the hospital. It can kick in and help pay for those things, pay for some of those medical bills.
That's what it's there for. The disaster caused need cannot be met through other forms of disaster assistance or insurance including a Disaster Systems Loan from the US through the Small Business Administration, also known as SBA. If you have insufficient or no insurance, as I said, once insurance is exhausted, then you could qualify for the Individuals Households Program. But you're not going to be able to qualify for it until your insurance has either been maxed out or you didn't have any.

So how do you apply for a program like this after a disaster is a little bit of what we want to talk about as well. Well, this program does have to be applied for through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's website or by contacting them. So the website for that is disasterassistance.gov. You can visit that website to learn more about applying for this program. You can also contact FEMA at 1-800-621-FEMA.

So if you've got more questions about the Individuals and Households Program or you want to look at your flood insurance to make sure you do have enough insurance.  You can always reach out to us. Floodinsuranceguru.com. Also make sure to like our Facebook page and subscribe to our YouTube channels where we do these daily videos every day. Thank you.