I recently had a customer reach out to me from a region of Florida that is prone to flooding. They had several days of rain and the water began to pool in the yard and then onto their back porch and then into the home. They were reaching out to me to determine whether they had any coverage that would apply.
First, let’s look at the home insurance policy…
It’s important to note that a standard home insurance policy written on form HO3 has an exclusion for certain types of water damage – included in this exclusion is the statement that flood, surface water, waves, tidal water, overflow of a body of water, or spray from any of these, whether or not driven by wind are excluded in the policy. So in this situation, the home insurance is not going to offer any coverage.
What about the flood insurance policy…
However, it is possible that a flood insurance policy would provide coverage for this situation assuming the rising water meets the definition of a flood by FEMA. For flood coverage to apply, the flooding must cover at least 2 acres of land OR must occur on two premises. For example, flood water in the neighbor’s yard or flood water in the public street meets the requirement for flooding under the policy. However, the flooding of just one property is not considered to be a covered flood event under a NFIP policy unless the area of water displacement is at least two acres. So if you experience a flood event, be certain to take photos and video of your property and the surrounding properties. This ensures you have evidence of more than two properties flooding to provide to the insurance company.
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