Hi Harbour Insurance client and friends;
I hope this email finds you well. The Summer is off to a nice start, and I hope you have so time and vacation plans for you and your family.
As we enter this hurricane season, I want to continue to remind you that all of Florida is in a flood zone. Some areas are more flood prone than others and some of you are required to purchase flood insurance if you are in the “High Hazard” area if you have a mortgage.
Our office was a ½ a mile away from ground zero from the flooding from Hurricane Ian. There were over 766,000 flood claims with Hurricane Ian. My home was ground zero for the flooding. We are elevated 12 feet and we had a surge of 13 feet. We had to move out of our home and remodel. It took us 9 months to get back to our home. I have both “primary” and “excess” flood. The primary flood policy with FEMA paid full limits very quickly, the excess policy took some wrangling to get paid but after 14 months from the storm my adjuster opened his checkbook and wrote a check for the correct amount of damage.
It seems that more and more areas in Florida and other parts of the country that are not prone to flood are flooding. There are many reasons why and here are a few:
- There are more concrete surface roads and less earth to soak down the water to natural aquafers.
- There are more people in Florida creating more treated wastewater that has no where to go when we get a lot of rain.
- The climate seems to be changing (I did not write “climate change” so please this is not political in any sense). As the climate changes (which it always is changing) so does the run off areas.
- The water authorities release water into canals that they have not released it into before to relieve the water pressure. You don’t know which canals they will divert water to.
If you are not in a “high hazard” area flood insurance can be some of the most “economical” insurance, you can buy. If you are interested in getting a quote for primary and / or excess flood please reach out to your account manager or send me an email and I will get it to them. *please note that there is a 30 day waiting period for flood insurance and we are in hurricane season. We get a lot of calls when a storm rolling towards shore and we can not do anything.
If you want more information here is a good site from the CFO of Florida on flood. https://www.myfloridacfo.com/division/ica/fullcoverage/flood.
Hoping for light winds and calm seas this season!
Thank you,
Will Kastroll
Owner
