Is flood insurance recommended
 

My husband and I are new residents to the Villages. We are curious as to whether we should have a flood insurance policy in addition to our normal home owners policy. What do most residence have?

I seem to recall that an area has to be in a flood plane in order to buy flood insurance, since the government subsidizes this. So you must first find out if your home is in a flood plane. Your insurance agent will be able to tell you.

We don't have it yet, but can get it. By the way....there is no way for anyone here to tell you what most residents have as insurance is normally a private issue and not disclosed to strangers.

:what:

Want the facts?

The National Flood Insurance Program | FEMA.gov

Probably not. You can search Google for news articles on flooding in your area. I think your main problem would be how the land is leveled in the area you live in. If you are in a dip you might flood and no one else.

I am not sure which Village you are in but the short answer is probably "no". However, you should do whatever lets you sleep at night.

The entire US is in a "flood plain". There are different letter names for the plains and essentially reflect the probabilities of experiencing a flood over a certain time period (100 years if I recall correctly). Some areas of the US have such a low probability that it probably doesn't make much sense to buy the insurance. For other areas you would be foolish not to buy the insurance.

There is some small print in the policies that is worth reading. For example, a "flood" is due to rising water and there is some language about some number of adjacent properties must also experience rising water (in other words, not an isolated occurrence). Flood insurance is for the structure and the contents must be insured via another policy. There is also a dollar limit on the coverage.

For the majority of The Villages, there appears to be effective management of the rainfall to catch basins and then to retention ponds. I have not heard of anyone experiencing "rising water" flooding.

I agree with talking to a qualified agent.

We carry flood insurance................there are very detailed definitions of what may NOT be covered without Flood Insurance.

If you wish to buy flood insurance, you should know that there are alternatives to the Federal plans.

Here are two private insurance companies that will write coverage at lower premiums than the Federal offerings:

Private Market Flood

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