Once again, hurricane season has arrived. Hopefully, we will have another calm year like 2009 and not another year like 2008 when Hurricane IKE came barreling through the Spring Texas area. If your house is located in the 100-year flood plain and you have a mortgage, your lender requires you to have flood insurance. But what if you own your Spring Texas house or your house is not located in the 100-year flood zone should you buy flood insurance? Or is flood insurance just a waste of your money?
I think to some degree we all hate insurance. It doesn’t matter whether it is homeowners or auto or health insurance, we still hate paying for something that provides us with no immediate benefit. But now when we need insurance, then we are very glad we have it. If only we could perfectly time our insurance needs. We would buy insurance just before we needed it and not a day before. But since you are not going to be able to time your insurance needs, you need to decide “Is flood insurance a wise purchase or a waste of money?”
The statistics:
Why is the percentage of flood damaged homes located outside the 100-year flood plain so high? It’s because of what the flood plain maps DO NOT depict. The flood plain maps show flooding risks from bayous and streams going over their banks during certain theoretical floods. The maps DO NOT show flooding risks from street flooding caused by storm sewers exceeding their capacity. Nor do they show what’s referred to as “sheet flow” which is water traveling over land to reach the bayous. Nor do they show flooding risks from extreme flooding events as we experienced with Tropical Storm Allison.
If all those statistics aren’t enough to convince you that buying flood insurance for your Spring Texas house is a wise decision, let me give you one more statistic. Over 50% of the flooding that occurs in Harris County is caused by flooding scenerios NOT depicted on flood plain maps. With flood insurance on an average Spring Texas house located outside the 100-year flood plain being around $250 a year, it is a wise purchase.
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Jill Wente is an incredible realtor! We lived in the area for about 3 years before taking the house-hunting plunge... read moreJill Wente is an incredible realtor! We lived in the area for about 3 years before taking the house-hunting plunge and truly could not have chosen a better realtor to work with. Jill is professional and patient, she is an incredible resource who is 100% there for her clients at all times. We had a lot of questions and didn't want to pay any closing costs or prepaid costs out of pocket - Jill is a Master Certified Negotiation Expert and it SHOWS. We got exactly what we wanted at the price we wanted AND had several bonuses thrown in, including appliances and gutters. She was there for inspections/walk-throughs and kept in contact with our builder's salesperson as well. If you want a strong realtor who is also pleasant to work with (which I've learned is rare), then Jill is the realtor for you!! read less