Is it just me or is everyone getting mail about buying flood insurance? I just got my first piece of mail telling me to call about getting it. Have the flood maps in the Cleveland area changed a ton recently?
I know NC is in the process of a 10yr long redo, but 90% of it was done in this area 2yrs ago (researched all that when buying a house). Theres a bunch of online resources showing the maps, feel free to consult them. Some good ones: http://www.ncfloodmaps.com/ http://fris.nc.gov/fris/Index.aspx?user=General Public&address=Clayton NC&ST=NC&ST=NC
Looks like JoCo is having a meeting about it on Jan 27th. Good news is that the new maps are smaller areas around my house. The 500 year flood zone is farther away from my house now. http://www.johnstonnc.com/files/planning/FEMA Floodmap Public Meeting Flyer.pdf
So do you have to have flood insurance if your property (land) is affected or just your structures (real property)? It looks like the .2% annual flood risk zone barely touches my property.
My understanding when I bought my house, was that you only needed it if the structures were in the 100 year (1%) area. My property has always been in the 1% area as I back up to a creek and have several acres. But my house was just on the edge of the 500 year (.2%) area before, now its about 75 feet from it. I could be wrong though. Not sure I read it right, but it says this here - https://www.floodsmart.gov/floodsmart/pages/about/when_insurance_is_required.jsp "Homes and buildings in high-risk flood areas with mortgages from federally regulated or insured lenders are required to have flood insurance. In high-risk areas, there is at least a 1 in 4 chance of flooding during a 30-year mortgage." Sounds like it would mean your house needs to be in a 25% area (over 30 years?).
I also have land in the 100 year floodplain, but when we bought I was told that as long as the structures aren't in it, flood insurance is not required. Needing to buy flood insurance would have stopped us from buying this property.
That is lender dependent. If flood is on your property, wether it touches your house or not, most lenders require flood insurance.
So in summary it sounds like the maps are being updated and some of us might need flood insurance that didn't before.
