Elevation Certification for Flood Insurance

[Paresh Patel]

Own a 2 flat in a flood plain area. Paying huge sum to FEMA for flood insurance. To appeal for the flood insurance, i was told to obtain a elevation certification and submit it to FEMA for review on the premium. Any advise, if this is feasible.

Thank you

[John Mocker]

Paresh,
First thing I would do is, as Annchen suggested, check the non FEMA flood programs. Many will rate just on your address and some basic info. That would be a quick way to find the best rate.

The Elevation certificate is used by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to evaluate how your building is situated in the flood plain (elevation of the property vs the base flood elevation there). In the program, the houses that were built prior to the first Flood map in the area had a separate rating and it was not based on elevation (called Pre FIRM). FEMA determined that they were under pricing those properties vs the actual losses. They started raising the rates for the Pre Firm properties. To off set that, they gave the option to get an elevation certificate and get rated on the actual elevation.

Before getting the Elevation certificate I would look at the flood maps for your address:
https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home

If you are on the boarder of the flood zone, your property goes through multiple zones, etc. that may impact what you do. You may want to go the route that Kenneth did and seek to have the zone for your property amended.

Good luck with the process.