All Forum Posts by: Bob B.

Also, one other quick item...the grants that are out there are generally for state and local governments. The situations in which FEMA will "pay" to raise your house loosely is based upon a number of things. One being you had a FEMA flood policy (not a private market policy), two your house was flooded and three you had the ICC option which is the Increased Cost of Compliance (I think that is what it stood for) and what that is...it is where FEMA will pay to elevate your damaged property up to a certain amount. Think about it this way, many places will not let you rebuild back on the ground. So the ICC part of your insurance does not cover the cost to rebuild, but to raise the house to new building code requirements above the current BFE....and that is capped at something like $30K. So that only covers a part of it in reality as you may recall in my earlier post it is costing $85K to raise one of my houses (1200 sq ft house). So unless you are vacation renting and probably doing it with condos, I don't suggest purchasing annual rentals in and area with high flood rates hoping you will get them to go down. If it will be in a flood zone, make sure it is a low cost flood zone like a B, C or X zone that generally only cost $200 to $400 per year.

I hate to say it, but there is a lot of misinformation in this thread.  I own multiple properties on the west coast of Florida in flood zones.  There are so many variables that go into flood quotes.  I have three houses directly on the beach.  All are in a VE zone.  House A is in a BFE (Base Flood Elevation) of 15 and is elevated 17 feet.  House B & C are in BFEs of 13.  House B is elevated to 14 feet, house C is on the ground 10 feet below the BFE.

With the same amount of coverage, $250K, tell me which premium is for which house?

$2,300

$6,900

$6,700

If you guessed the house on the ground (House C) is the cheapest, you are right!  Next cheapest is the house only 1 foot above BFE (House B) and the most expensive is the house 2 feet above BFE (House A).

Grandfathering impacts rates more than anything.  Flood vents, break-away walls and such have such a little effect on rates.

FEMA and private flood companies are ridiculous when they are not grandfathered in and you can't really get around it.

Just trying to figure out how they really rate the buildings with different features, I had my agent go through each building type in the same location, with the same elevation.  This would take an hour to give you insight on how it impacted rates, but nominally.  With flood vents, without, with break-away walls, without.  It always came to BFE and an assumable policy (grandfathering).

http://premierflood.com/e-comm/building-diagrams.p...

What I had come to find out, diagram 5 which allows flood waters to flow without restriction were still very high (Building B).  

(Building A) which is diagram 6 due to an elevator that is on the outside of the main structure.

Finally, Building C is a diagram 1B which actually lifts the house on stem walls which makes it perfect that a house is 16" off the ground so it can more easily float away.

All that said, the most important thing is to not let grandfathering expire.

If it does, you are not going to significantly impact your rates with breakaway walls (diagram 6) or flood vents.

Also, I would love if it was true that FEMA would pay 75% to raise my house that is on the ground in the flood zone. It would save me the $85K I am about to spend raising it (there is some limited grant monies available, but it is not easy to get and you have to wait over a year to see if you might get some of it as the process is pretty drawn out). If that was the case, why is not every ground level house on the beach being raised? Simply FEMA does not pay for houses that have not been flooded and you can only get a grant if you have been flooded and there are is a series of criteria you have to meet to get a partial payment, if any. If FEMA really did that, why would anyone be stupid enough to buy flood insurance if FEMA is just going to give it to you anyway?

There is more I can go into on this, I am just pressed for time tonight and I stumbled across this thread.