Living in Southern California (a desert) we often forget floods do happen.  And because they are often years in between, they catch us off guard.

Is your home or business in a flood zone that floods every five, ten, twenty, fifty, or one-hundred years?  Are you near a "dried river bed"?

Is your bank making you get a flood policy to secure your mortgage loan?

Read this article and if needed, contact the Farmers Insurance Agent below.

Reprint from FoxBusiness.com


Written by Jay MacDonald
Published January 31, 2012
Bankrate.com


When torrential rains and massive snowmelt swelled North Dakota's Souris River to 100-year flood levels in June, displacing more than 10,000 residents of Minot, Farmers Insurance agent James Bierschbach's phone began to ring.




"Those houses had been in the high-risk flood zone A back during our last big flood in 1969," he says. "But in the early '80s, they were re-rated to zone X, the 100-year flood level, after some dikes were put in."

As a result, homeowners in the flooded area who had long ago dropped flood coverage or weren't ever required to purchase it were stuck with steep financial losses because most homeowners insurance policies don't cover flood damage.

Not all of Bierschbach's callers were reconsidering flood insurance, however. Some were now buying flood coverage because they had to do so.

"When people want to borrow the money to rebuild, the banks and the Small Business Administration are now requiring flood insurance on any of the houses down in that area to protect them against another flood," he says.


Throughout much of the Northeast and Midwest, the once-in-a-lifetime flooding of 2011, some of which resulted from slow-moving Hurricane Irene, has many homeowners rethinking their need for flood insurance.



"This year really highlighted the question: What is plan B if I don't have flood insurance?" says Michael Barry, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute. "They've really gotten a quick primer on the financial recovery process."

Buying flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program, or NFIP, a government program administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is mandatory for federally backed mortgage holders who live in a FEMA-designated Special Flood Hazard Area, or SFHA. But for those who own their home outright or reside in non-SFHAs, or NSFHAs, the decision can be a difficult one.

"The first thing that people need to understand is everybody lives in a flood zone," says Janet Scott-Buckley, office manager of Harrington Insurance Agency in North Andover, Mass. "The question is, how high is your risk?"

These steps will help you assess your need for flood coverage.

Step 1: Assess Your Home's Flood Risk

Just because you don't live in a high-risk zone doesn't mean you're safe from flooding.