Flood insurance for your home.
A house, a condo, a townhouse, a property you rent out. Here is what matters before you buy or renew.
Building and contents
Flood insurance pays for direct physical damage from rising water. Building covers the structure, the foundation, the electrical and plumbing, the water heater and the central air. Contents covers your furniture, clothing and electronics.
These are two separate limits with two separate deductibles. If a lender required flood insurance on your mortgage, it almost certainly required building coverage only, which means everything inside your house may not be covered.
The NFIP limits, and who they suit
The federal program caps a single family policy at $250,000 on the building and $100,000 on contents. Those are ceilings, not recommendations, and they have not moved in a long time.
For a modest home the NFIP is genuinely fine, and for some properties it is the only option a carrier will write. We will tell you when that is the case.
When private flood beats it
Private carriers write above the federal ceiling, often to a million or more, which is closer to what a rebuild costs on a lot of Broward and Miami Dade houses. They frequently pay replacement cost on contents rather than depreciated value, and many include living expenses while the house is repaired.
On a well elevated home private flood is often cheaper than the NFIP for more coverage. That is the single most common thing we find when we run both.
Elevation certificates
An elevation certificate records how high your lowest floor sits relative to the base flood elevation for your area. If your house sits above that line, the certificate proves it, and proving it can cut a premium substantially.
Many Broward homes already have one on file from a past sale or permit and the owner has no idea. Before you pay a surveyor, let us check.
The thirty day wait
An NFIP policy does not take effect for thirty days after you buy it, unless it is tied to a closing or a lender requirement. Buy on the first of June and you are uninsured through the peak of the month.
Private flood commonly binds far faster, sometimes within days. If you are reading this because a storm is in the forecast, call rather than fill out a form.
Before you start
Takes about five minutes
A few things are easier to look up now than halfway through. Nothing here is required to begin.
- Your flood zone, if you know it.
- Whether you have an elevation certificate.
- Who your current carrier is and when the policy expires.
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