What Is Flood Insurance?

Regardless of whether the view from your house is of sandy beaches, ocean, and salt marshes, or it’s filled with trees, sidewalks, and homes and businesses as far as the eye can see, you should strongly consider protecting your home and belongings against a flood event by securing this important insurance coverage.

If you own a home in a high-risk flood area or are considering buying one, you may have been required by your mortgage lender to get flood insurance. But even if getting a flood policy has not been made a requirement of your home loan, securing a flood policy may prove to be one of the smartest decisions you’ll ever make as a homeowner.

That’s because flooding remains the number one weather-related natural disaster across the country. This event can have a devastating impact on any community, any property, and any person, anywhere. In fact, flooding has already affected 99% of U.S. counties causing substantial and costly damage, and leaving millions of homeowners to pick up the pieces.

Flooding can happen for several reasons. A levee fails or is overtopped; excessive rainfall or rapid snow melt causes water to rise over the top of a riverbank; a severe storm system, like a hurricane, with extremely strong winds and rain bands results in a dangerous storm surge and abnormally high tides; are just a few of the possible, and common, flood risk scenarios in our area.

Even if just a few inches of floodwater from these events were to enter your home, it could cause your basement walls to collapse, wreck your foundation, compromise your appliances, gas lines, and electrical system, and destroy an endless number of personal belongings. Can you imagine what a few feet of water might do?!

Since most home insurance policies do not cover flood-related expenses, such as repairs or replacements, it’s critical to protect yourself financially from this rising threat with a separate flood insurance policy.

What does Flood Insurance cover?

If your property is impacted by a flood event, having a flood insurance policy may help you pay for direct physical losses to your home’s structure and the belongings inside. Following are some examples of what may be covered.

Even if you’ve been in your home for years and have never thought about getting flood insurance, or if you already have flood insurance but it’s been some time since you first bought it, now might be a good time to reevaluate your options. Not only can a property’s flood risk change over time, but there are many more flood insurance options available to homeowners today than in the past. There’s also flood insurance coverage available for condo owners and renters.

How Austin takes care of you and your home is different from all the rest

If flood insurance is beginning to sound like coverage that you should take a good, long look at, it’s important to work closely with a local insurance team, like the professionals at Austin. We will thoroughly assess your flood insurance requirements and help you find the right policy at the most affordable rate available.

As part of this process, it may be helpful for us to come out to your property and see your home and the surrounding neighborhood firsthand. Because we have lived and worked in the area for decades, we are already very familiar with flood zones and the risk of flooding here. However, we want to take an up-close and personal look at your unique home and the property’s elevation, its design, the location of the utilities, and more. This will aid us in determining the companies that might be the right resource for your flood insurance policy and that may be best able to meet your distinct needs and budget.

To experience our personalized approach to flood insurance, please call the Austin Insurance team today at 781-447-5561.