Sorry if I've (obviously) hit a nerve, Joel, but that's the way I feel.
I have owned 6 different houses over the years and have paid very
careful attention to not locating within a flood zone. I couldn't avoid
it in south Florida but still managed to locate a house that was in the
500 year flood zone instead of the more common 100 year flood zone and,
in addition, although within the 500 year zone, was actually 1 foot
above the expected 500 year flood level. That's hard to do in south
Florida... I was at 18 feet elevation rather than 17. I also had flood
insurance then but the premium was miniscule given the special
conditions of the property. The area where I'm living now is known for
extensive flooding along the Susquehanna river valley but I've
deliberately located on a high hill well above any flood waters...
unless of biblical world-wide proportions.
The congress is well aware of the over-subsidization of the National
Flood Insurance Program and chooses not to fix it. And I know enough
not to tilt at windmills. But that doesn't mean that I have to like it.
The problem with the NFIP is the repetitive loss properties (RLPs)
that comprise 1% of the flood insurance policies but account for 30% of
the claims dollars. I don't blame you for taking full advantage of
whatever program is available to you and I don't know (despite your
getting hit twice) that your particular property would even now be
classified as RLP. Here's a little light reading on the subject from
the Congressional Research Service.
<http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32972.pdf>
Now back to our other off topic topics.
Chuck Norcutt
Joel Wilcox wrote:
> Chuck,
> I've paid for flood insurance as long as I have lived where I live.
> If you would like to campaign to get the US government out of the
> business of subsidizing flood insurance, I will be happy to pay for
> the privatized version of it. I'm sure I can get a good rate based on
> a .2 % risk and my "survival record," plus I could probably negotiate
> a higher or lower deductible. But the best part is that then I could
> also organize private and class action law suits, currently not
> allowed, against the DNR and various governmental agencies when I
> consider that they have screwed up outflows from the reservoirs,
> levees that I don't like, and that kind of thing, and get all those
> private insurance lawyers involved. Please let me know how it goes so
> I can start to think about how I want to spend all the settlement
> money. So many public servants to sue, so little time.
>
> Joel W.
>
> On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 9:56 PM, Chuck Norcutt
> <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I'm afraid I feel the same. And we perpetuate the situation by selling
>> highly subsidized federal flood insurance into extremely high risk areas.
>>
>> Chuck Norcutt
>>
>> John Hudson wrote:
>>> Choose to locate on a flood plain or in an area with a long history of
>>> flooding problems and one should expect no symapthy when nature weighs
>>> against them. The intelligent would locate to higher ground.
>>>
>>> Sorry ........... just my 2 bits wporth.
>>>
>>> jh
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