Let's Talk Flood Insurance

The Federal Government, meaning you, feels so very sorry for those people who live in flood zones.  So they provide them with flood insurance.  It is called NFIP.  National Flood  Insurance Program.  You buy it through a regular insurance company, separate from your homeowners insurance but it is all the same NFIP.  Your costs are supposed to be based upon your risk but people with a home and no income get subsidized.  Totally not fair.  but that is the way we do it in this country, if you are part of the 57% who are on government subsidies, you get a lot of breaks that I work for and pay for.

And they don’t make them move.  I am not talking about like my place but like places that repeatedly flood, yearly even.  

Like my mother’s husband.  Both of whom are gone in the last 2 years.  He flooded several times a year, and got paid each time.  It was how his family of non-working stiffs made money during the year.  Stan's house on Lake Pontchartrain outside New Orleans was 16 feet in the air. 

He paid, get this, $157 per year for flood insurance.  And he was even in a specialized, highly subsidized, frequent flood zone.

 

We live in non-flood zone, with no history of flooding anywhere around here, and we paid $687 a year.  I have no idea what the whole cost would have been to insure Stan's ramshackle cabin, but it must have been pretty steep.  And the government subsidized all the amounts over $157. 

So, what if you don’t have flood insurance and you live in a flood zone or a non-flood zone?  FEMA happens for you.  I pay almost $700 a year, which will probably go to over $3500 in the future, and get to argue with the adjuster and get ignored by FEMA and those idiots who don’t have flood insurance subsidized by the government get money.   what i don't understand is how all these people had mortgagees AND were not required to have flood insurance.  I think they were, and just didn't.  I guess like auto insurance, you can sign up, show proof and then cancel. 

Probably, we don't know  yet, 

not as much as I POTENTIALLY will get, but they also have lots of interaction with FEMA because they are targeted as having no flood insurance.  The first question on the FEMA application is “How much was the gross income on your last year's income tax return?”

The second question is, “Do you have flood insurance?”

You self sort yourself.

Non-flood insurance people are eligible for food debit cards that get monthly refills, some small appliances like a microwave, an oven/stove combination, a bathroom clean-up and replacement and a refrigerator.  A sink but not a dishwasher.  Basic pots, silverware and plates.  

In other words, the necessities that will get them started.  Do you think I have been offered any of that?  

My adjuster told me he didn't want to pay for new granite but would pay for bottom cabinets.  How the heck do you get the cabinets out then?  He also said they would not pay for new silverware, dishes or pots because mine were not "damaged" by floodwaters.

I simply asked him if  he would feed his family on plates that sat in sewerage water?  He shrugged.  

To me it was not an option.