FEMA warns against not having flood insurance

Despite being the nation’s number one natural disaster, statistics continue to show that most people ignore the risks associated flooding and do not purchase flood insurance.

In Texas, only eight percent of households have flood insurance. Out of more than eight million Texas households, just over half a million have purchased flood insurance policies through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).  These low figures cause concern especially since out of 16 federally declared disasters in Texas in the past 10 years, a total of 13 or 81 percent of those disasters were flood-related or included flooding caused by a tropical storm or hurricane.

Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Denton, Texas, the regional office that oversees Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, point to several reasons for a lack of participation in NFIP.

“Many people assume that their homeowners’ insurance covers floods, but it usually doesn’t,” said FEMA Region 6 Regional Administrator Tony Russell. “Others think that if they don’t live in a flood zone then they don’t have to buy flood insurance or simply can’t because it’s not offered; both assumptions are inaccurate.”

Posted by publisher on Mar 14 2011. Filed under Letters to the Editor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.