HOUSINGNEWS REPORT
REAL ESTATE INSURANCE: FENDING OFF DISASTER IN A CHANGING WORLD
by organizations who do not have a stake in the outcome.”
“Flood insurance traps homeowners in a situation no one wants to be in: forced to rebuild in a location that will inevitably flood again. It’s time to start helping people move to higher ground, rather than make them wait for the next flood.”
“For cities to grow,” she explained, “they need flood maps to be favorable to their areas because potential home buyers are shy of purchasing properties in a flood zone. Properties in a flood zone must often be insured by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) because private insurance may be unavailable or cost-prohibitive. If individuals are not required to buy flood insurance, they won’t, leaving them without assistance in the event of a disaster and decreasing the financial impact to the NFIP in the event of a disaster. The NFIP has been subject to budget cuts over the years so by reducing flood zones, it reduces the liability of the NFIP.” Managed Retreat Fifth, living in flood-prone areas will need to be re-thought.
ROB MOORE SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
half of New Orleans woke up in a land safe from storms and flooding.”
“As a matter of fact,” Gibbas noted, “after Hurricane Harvey (which Weather Source researched extensively) the government is left with a challenging problem, which is whether to designate certain parts of Houston to be in a flood zone as a result of one storm. Opponents say no, as this is (a) 500-year storm, but many experts believe events like Harvey have become the norm and
“The flood maps are often wrong for many reasons,” said Mark Gibbas with Weather Source. He explained that “changes in the land surface can happen due to significant storms, earthquakes, slow uplift or subsidence, or can happen as part of a major construction project. Producing accurate flood maps should not be done by a single party and certainly not solely done by the U.S. government. I believe we would be better served by having a number of qualified groups involved in producing flood maps. The schedule for producing flood maps should be at least yearly.
homeowners in these areas need to have appropriate and adequate insurance.”
Markow, with Quality Claims, said that “flood maps should be updated at least annually but, more importantly,
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OCT 2018 | ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS
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