Funds Available to Help Flooded Property Owners Build to Requirements

HARRISBURG, PA – February 29, 2012 – (RealEstateRama) — Property owners rebuilding or making repairs to their flood-damage properties have access to a number of resources – including financial — that can help them reduce, or prevent, future disaster loss.

In some areas, property owners will be required by local ordinance to meet certain requirements when making repairs or rebuilding. To help cover the costs of meeting those requirements, the National Flood Insurance Program includes Increased Cost of Compliance (ICC) coverage for all new and renewed standard flood insurance policies.

Flood insurance policyholders in high-risk areas, also known as special flood hazard areas, can get up to $30,000 to help pay the costs to bring their property into compliance with their community’s floodplain ordinance.

Four Options Covered

There are four options available to comply with your community’s floodplain management ordinance and help reduce future flood damage.

1. Elevation. This raises your home or business to or above the flood elevation level adopted by your community.
2. Relocation. This moves your home or business out of harm’s way.
3. Demolition. This tears down and removes flood-damaged buildings.
4. Floodproofing. This option is available primarily for non-residential properties. It involves making a building watertight through a combination of adjustments or additions of features to the building that reduces the potential for flood damage.

Property owners who suffered flood damage can file a claim for ICC assistance in two instances:

1. If your community determines that the home or business is damaged by flood to the point that repairs will cost 50 percent or more of the building’s pre-damage market value. This is called substantial damage.
2. If your community has adopted a repetitive loss provision, and determines the home or business was damaged by a flood two times in the past 10 years, where the cost of repairing the flood damage, on the average, equaled or exceeded 25 percent of its market value. This is called repetitive damage. Additionally, there must have been flood insurance payments for each of the two flood losses.

Additional information on how to file a claim and how payment is made for valid ICC claims is available online at www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/floodplain/ICC.shtm.

For more information on ICC coverage, call your insurance company or agent, or call the NFIP toll-free at    1-800-427-4661. TDY# 1-800-427-5593.

Several other websites describe options that can be taken to mitigate future loss:

• www.fema.gov/rebuild/recover/resources.shtm offers information and plans for homeowners rebuilding after a disaster
• www.floodsmart.gov/floodsmart is a link to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) site.
• www.fema.gov/media/fact_sheets/mitigation.shtm is a link to multiple fact sheets on a variety of mitigation subjects.

More general information is available at www.fema.gov which provides an overview of the agency’s programs, types of disaster assistance and links to other important sources of information.

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.