Flood Insurance Re-Mapping Headaches Are Coming…

As many homeowners of Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and the Lowcountry either know or don’t know, FEMA is updating flood zones for our area.  These new flood zones are supposed to come into affect sometime in 2015 if the timeline stays true.  If using other states as a sample whose flood zones have already been updated then we should be very concerned with what is to come when our new flood zones become effective.

Many homeowners across the country are being wrongly placed into higher hazard flood zones where they were not before.  This is forcing them to purchase high premium flood insurance policies with no other recourse.  However, many of these homeowners are finding that old data is being used to map the new flood zones which is causing many errors and placing many properties that should not be in a high risk flood zone into one.

In this article titled “Using Outdated Data, FEMA Is Wrongly Placing Homeowners In Flood Zones”, written by Theodoric Meyer with ProPublica, it highlights specific examples of homeowners from across the country that have been placed in high hazard flood zones in error.  I highly encourage you to read this as the same issues could be coming our way in Charleston, Mount Pleasant and other parts of the Lowcountry.

Please stay informed of all the new changes to the flood insurance program so you are not hit with any “surprises”.  Should you have any flood insurance question, please call our office at 843.763.4200 or email Andrew at Andrew@mappusinsurance.com  You can also visit our flood insurance page to read more about this topic.

*Photo courtesy of ProPublic