Flooding is separate from typical US home insurance and many homeowners are not adequately covered
As millions of US residents begin working to file insurance claims on their homes in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, many could be denied, particularly if their homes were damaged by flooding.
A quirk in the US home insurance market is that flood insurance is separate from typical home insurance, which usually covers wind damage from hurricanes but not flooding. Homeowners must purchase flood insurance separately if they want their homes protected against flooding.
And many don’t. In some areas where Hurricane Helene hit the hardest, less than 1% of homes had flood insurance when the storm hit. In Buncombe county in North Carolina, home to Asheville, only 0.9% of homes had flood insurance, according to data from the Insurance Information Institute.
The number of people with flood insurance in Florida, which was hit by Hurricane Milton two weeks after parts of the state were battered by Helene, is higher than in other parts of the country. But still, the take-up is low. In Sarasota county, which took a direct hit from Milton, just 23% of residents have flood insurance.
“Stupid people get screwed by their own stupidity. News at 11.”
Obviously this is a shit system, but you don’t live in Florida and not buy flood insurance, or at least know that you should, because you did your due diligence when deciding to become a homeowner. The solution is absolutely stupid and unfair, but it DOES exist. Until we get a better system in place, people who chose not to avail themselves of the currently available solution made their bed.
I understand the sentiment, but that’s too many people without flood insurance for it to be called “their own stupidity”. 20% of the population can be stupid. Maybe 50%. But 99.1%? Nah, they got scammed
I respectfully disagree. I don’t think government flood insurance is a scam. I think the government offers it so people don’t get scammed by these craptacular private insurance companies.
One nuance and rather deceptive point of the article is the statistics only apply to “some” areas, not the whole. The people in NC, which is where that less than 1% comes from, those people got screwed. The one county they picked out of Florida was 20%. I feel like they just pick and chose the worst examples by county, instead of talking about the overall.
The only shitty thing is just how expensive absolutely everything has been. People selling their houses because insurance is so astronomically expensive that they can no longer afford to insure it. Of course this whole increase in extreme weather conditions is due to climate change, because we suck, and the planet was going to go through this eventually anyway, but it is mostly because we suck.
On the point of people not knowing they need flood insurance, you are right. Definitely callous, but this has been the norm for decades. The system is unfair, but insurance companies exist to make money, not help you. I don’t understand how they wouldn’t know this by now, that you need both. Especially in Florida. I remember even after Katrina it was talked about on the news for weeks about this practice.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Insurance shouldn’t be a for profit business.
You wouldn’t believe how ignorant Floridians can be.
Milton’s eyewall just passed over us (like Ian just did). I have a friend who’s a realtor, and he had people coming in the next day to buy houses in blatant flood zones. None of them on stilts or anything.
I think human beings largely need to learn from experience to really learn anything. Burning their hand, getting bitten, or I guess getting flooded.
Katrina was almost 20 years ago dude. Peoples memories are like goldfish, you think they cared? The only thing they learned was the president did not like black people.
Finally. A reasonable fellow lemming with great critical thinking abilities. I salute you, friend.