Many people refer to a major water leak as flooding. Insurance, however, defines flooding, or a flood as rising water caused by rivers, lakes & streams overflowing their banks, rising water from heavy rains, or tidal surge which enters the home. This type of water damage isn’t covered by your home insurance policy, it’s only covered by flood insurance.
Welcome to hurricane season which runs from June 1 to November 30th. It’s a great time for Texas homeowners to take a few minutes to review their home insurance keeping in mind a hurricane or named storm can impact north Texas residents as easily as it does our coastal neighbors. Let’s address two key areas of your home insurance policy to review along with two other related policies.
In August a slow moving unnamed storm system settled over Louisiana dumping up to 31.39 inches of rain over 72 hours resulting in a 1,000 year rain. Massive flooding occurred affecting 188,729 homes and 507,495 people, of which 60,000 were damaged by flood waters. It’s estimated that 78% of the homes damaged by flood waters did not have flood insurance.
Hurricane Matthew has come and gone and left a trail of damage in its wake stretching from the Caribbean through Virginia. Every storm leaves its own statistical imprint as Matthew did. Here are some of the numbers worth mentioning.
Insurance Journal published an interesting article based on the results of a survey undertaken by Trusted Choice and the Big I earlier this month. The results were very interesting and point out that most Americans are ill prepared financially for a major disaster, think their home policy will cover them in the event of a disaster, and may not have enough home insurance coverage to replace their home should they encounter such a disaster. With us being at the height of hurricane and wildfire seasons, let’s examine the survey’s findings.
Tropical Storm Colin serves as a great reminder for Texas homeowners to take a few minutes to perform an insurance review that’s focused on hurricanes and the type of claims that occur. To help with that, let’s delineate who and what needs to be reviewed by tiers and the type of coverage.
One of my Houston clients called me in April. It was the morning after they’d been evacuated by boat from their home in the middle of the night as north west Houston flooded. The water eventually reached 10 feet deep in the street and topped out about 2 plus feet on the first floor of her and her husband’s home. I used that conversation to review the preparations she and her husband made in advance of the floodwaters and outline a plan of what to do when the water receded. They good news is they have flood insurance!
Last week’s home post outlined some of the questions I’ve been asked about flood insurance and the answers I’ve given (see https://wiseinsurancegroup.com/questions-answers-flood-insurance/). This week, I want to answer one more question, and that is, “Who needs flood insurance?” I don’t believe everyone needs it, however, there are some who do whose home may not even be in a flood zone.
The flooding that ravaged parts of Houston in April damaged 1,731 homes. Floods, such as Houston’s flood, affect much more than just homes, They impact businesses as well as cars and trucks. With that in mind, I thought we’d take a look at the impact flooding has on cars and answer the question, do you know what kind of car insurance coverage protects against a flooded vehicle.
When a massive amount of rain falls in a short period of time, flooding is inevitable. After seeing these two events, I felt it important to revisit flood insurance by answers some of the questions I’m asked by homeowners. Over the next two weeks, I’ll also answer the question of who needs flood insurance and talk about cleaning up after a flood.
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