Cronin Insurance insures houses, condos, and commercial properties for Flood Insurance in Florida.
When water comes under your door and causes damage to your building and/or personal property, flood insurance will cover your damages.
Most floods occur from rising tides and standing water. In Florida, hurricanes cause a lot of flooding.
NOT ALL WATER DAMAGE IS FLOODING
Water that blows into your home from a broken window or leaks through your roof is not considered Flood damage.
Insurance adjusters will tell you that Wind-driven rain is the culprit.
So these types of claims would not be paid under a flood policy. You would claim these on your regular Home policy.
Similarly, water damage from a broken pipe or an overflowing toilet would not be considered a Flood.
This would also be claimed under your regular HO policy.
To claim under the Flood policy, water must leak into your house from the outside- usually under your doors.
DO You NEED To INSURE Against Floods?
If you live in Florida, you need Flood insurance.
We are located in hurricane alley. Every Atlantic hurricane is pointed at Florida. Some miss us, many hit us.
Along with the intense winds, storm surges can raise tides 20 feet at high tide.
Torrential rains can cause flooding well inland from the coast.
There is no coverage for this kind of flooding under a regular home policy.
Many homeowners are required by their mortgagees to buy a Flood policy because they live in a high risk zone.
They are the lucky ones. Hurricane Harvey caused billions of dollars of flood damage in supposedly low risk zones in Houston.
These people could only get small loans from FEMA.
Many will never be able to rebuild.
You need to insure against Floods.
IS FLOOD INSURANCE EXPENSIVE?
No, Flood insurance for most people is inexpensive.
The average policy in Florida costs about $600 a year. If you are in a low risk zone, it’s even less.
Flood insurance is going up, though.
Because of Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and Harvey, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) had to borrow money to pay all the claims.
Congress has called for “Actuarily sound” rates. This means they want the NFIP to charge enough premium so they don’t have to borrow any money in the future.
This will cause pressure on Coastal homes that are paying way too little now compared to the risk they face.
For the rest of us, Flood insurance will remain affordable.
HOW DO YOU BUY FLOOD INSURANCE?
There are two ways to buy Flood insurance protection in Florida:
From the National Flood Insurance Program and from Private Flood insurance carriers.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is part of FEMA.
The NFIP allows companies that also write Home insurance to access Flood insurance in their “Write Your Own Flood” program.
In this program, the Insurance company services the policy by processing applications, billing premium, and servicing claims.
The NFIP provides the money to pay the claims.
The NFIP sets the coverage available, the deductibles allowed, and the premium the companies can charge.
In the past, the NFIP allowed the same rates for high risk areas as low risk areas.
So in essence, the low risk areas subsidized the high risk areas who placed most of the flood claims.
Although this strategy might have helped participation, it suppressed premiums in high risk areas most likely to place claims.
This contributed to FEMA and the NFIP generating hundreds of millions in deficits after paying claims for Katrina, Sandy and other storms.
Congress had to bail them out and demanded changes to the program so this didn’t happen every storm.
Congress called for actuarily-sound rates in all Flood zones, especially coastal zones most likely to flood.
With access to Big Data, the NFIP is able to zero in on the most flood prone areas down to individual homes.
High risk areas are now being charged based on their actual risk of a claim rather than lumped in with other low risk areas.
These higher prices have resulted in private companies looking to write Flood insurance too.
Private Insurance Now available in Florida
With the dawn of higher flood prices, private insurance companies are now competing with the NFIP to write flood insurance.
Whereas in the past, Flood rates were determined by large area maps, Big Data has allowed private companies to assess flood risk based on individual addresses.
This enables them to clarify which homes are riskier to insure and to set accurate rates for that risk.
The result is private companies are now able to offer competitive price alternative to the NFIP.
The NFIP limit their basic policies to $250,000 in Dwelling and $100,000 in Contents.
Any higher coverages would require a second “Excess Flood Policy” to bring coverage up to match the limits of the Home insurance.
Private companies can offer Replacement cost on Dwelling and Contents on a single policy.
So if you want $750,000 on Dwelling and $375,000 on Contents, private insurance will write it on one policy.
And they can offer additional coverage like Loss of Use and Other structures.
Which is better: Private Insurance or the NFIP?
It depends.
If your home doesn’t require high limits of coverage, under $250,000 of Dwelling coverage, then NFIP might fit the bill.
If your home requires greater than $250,000 in Dwelling coverage, than Private insurance might work better.
Mortgagees will accept the $250,000 in Dwelling coverage for flood, so if you don’t think you’re likely to have a bad flooding problem, and you want to save some premium, you might opt for the NFIP rather than writing full replacement cost of your home.
Either way, you should ask your agent (hopefully Cronin Insurance) to shop both.
Review your options, and make your choice.
But make sure you have Flood insurance to protect your home in Florida.
Cronin Insurance shops both the NFIP and Private Flood insurance to find you your best deal on Flood Insurance.
FLORIDIANS TURN TO CRONIN INSURANCE AGENCY FOR FLOOD INSURANCE WHEN They:
- Acquire a new house.
- Are concerned about their “low-lying” house.
- Worry their house is near a canal, lake or other body of water.
- Fear flooding from a major hurricane.
- Have had it with “Force-placed” flood insurance from their mortgagee.
Our Flood insurance policies are reasonably priced, cover both your dwelling and your personal property and are acceptable to all mortgagees.
