You might be one of the people whose homes were flooded by the 2024 storms — but couldn't get your regular insurance policy to pay for much of the damage.
Many people may not be aware that the typical homeowner's insurance policy does not cover damage caused by water. That could include rain pouring through a hole in your roof or flood waters lapping at your front door.
WUSF spoke with Kelly Nugent, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Wright Flood, which is based in Clearwater, to get an explanation on what you should know.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Who should get flood insurance?
NUGENT: Everyone should consider purchasing flood insurance, especially in Florida. If it can rain, it can flood with all the growth in places in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, water doesn't drain like it used to.
Flood insurance is crucial because most standard homeowners' or renters’ insurance policies don't cover flood damage. It provides financial protection against the significant cost of repairing or replacing property damaged by floods, and especially it's important if a person has a federally backed mortgage that is in a high flood risk area, or we refer to it as a Special Flood Hazard Area.
I'll just give you a prime example of this. I was born and raised in Tampa. Grew up in St. Pete. My parents have lived in St. Pete for the last 45 years. They had flood insurance. They live close to the bay. Their house has never flooded. Well, with Helene, they did flood, and so what's happened with them is there's all this construction around them, so their house is sort of now like in a bowl, so where they've never flooded. Well, this year, they got four feet of water into their house.
And it's really sad people that have lived here forever and they're experiencing it, thank heavens, they've had flood insurance, so we are able to help them get through the process, but it was a lot even having flood insurance, but they were able to get back in their house more quickly than somebody that doesn't have flood insurance.
Should homeowners who don't live in a designated flood zone — in light of everything that happened during last year's storms — should they buy flood insurance?
My recommendation is always yes. Last year's storms showed that flooding can happen anywhere, even outside the high-risk zones or the special flood hazard areas.
Even a few inches of floodwater can cause extensive damage to a home, requiring expensive repairs and potentially impacting a family's financial stability, which is very crucial. More than 40% of the National Flood Insurance Program claims, which we refer to as the NFIP, come from outside of the high-risk areas.
So, how about renters? If I'm renting an apartment, maybe I'm on ground level, should they get flood insurance as well?
Absolutely. Renter's insurance usually doesn't cover flood damage, so a separate policy can help protect the insured with their belongings, their contents.
Flood insurance is often available through the NFIP and can protect the belongings, such as furniture, electronics, clothing. Renters' insurance for flooded contents is relatively inexpensive, depending on where you live.
For the ordinary average homeowner, how much can they expect to pay?
Flood insurance rates vary based on factors such as location, flood risk and the type of property. I would say, on average, flood insurance can cost approximately $1,000 per year. Again, depending properties in a high risk flood zones or areas that are closer to the water are going to have higher premiums.
Perfect example, my parents live in Pinellas County. They live close to the water. They're at a very low elevation. Their insurance is $3,000. I live in Hillsborough County, on higher ground, not close to water, and my insurance is less than $600 a year. I'm in a non-special flood hazard zone, so it just depends on where you're at, but we're looking, on average, about $1,000 per year.
The prices have been coming up, though, I remember, when I first took out flood insurance, I live in a high and dry zone. I was paying less than $100 several years ago, and that's up to about $700 now, so they have been coming up. Is this because of all the storms that we've been having recently?
Well, no, not really. With FEMA Risk Rating 2.0, that's how the program changed, and what we've seen are flood insurance premiums are calculated. Well, how are they calculated?
It led to both an increase and decrease for policyholders, depending on where you are. So that's why you'll see some variables, some have gone up and some have gone down. It just depends on where your house is located, the elevation, some other factors that go into that. But we have seen in Florida a lot of areas where premiums have gone down.
I think a lot of people are confused about where flood coverage begins and ordinary windstorm insurance does not. Most people, if you have a mortgage, you have to have a windstorm policy, right? But what does flood insurance cover that windstorm does not cover?
I can't speak to the windstorm policy or a homeowner's policy. I really don't — it's two separate policies. Your flood policy is going to be. From rising waters, anything that your flood water touches, from the rising waters in the home or building.
If you have building and contents coverage, you'd have to look at the policy to see what's actually covered. I don't really know about the homeowners' or windstorm policy.
How would flood insurance policies or prices be affected if plans to downsize FEMA or shift that burden to the individual states are enacted?
We're operating business as usual. So I don't anticipate that. We want to make sure our policyholders are taken care of, along with our agent partners.
Anything else you'd like to mention?
The biggest thing is, if you live in Florida, you definitely should have a flood policy if you can afford it, because it does help at the time of loss to help you get back into your home financially and just for the security of your loved ones.
