Flood Insurance woes

We have lived on our place for 17 years and have refinanced 3 times and have always been deemed not in a flood zone. We are currantly going through another refinance because of the low rates and now the company the lender uses , Land Safe, is saying that we are in a flood zone. Not only in a flood zone but in the "A" designation, which is the highest. We contacted the last company, CBC land services, which still says that we are not in a flood zone. FEMA is no help they only tell me how to get a map amendment which takes hiring a surveyor and will take 30 to 60 days. From talking to FEMA and the various companies it looks as though they look up the address on the FEMA map, which is available on the net, and make a judgement without considering the elevation or propery boundries. Sounds like reading tea leaves to me. Flood ins. is going to cost $2200.00 per year if I go through with the refinance, so if anyone has any insight on this I sure would be open to ideas. Thanks [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

Sorry about your troubles, Joe. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]
It sounds like more big government bs. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
One can only hope that one day it happens to the lawmakers. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

You may want to find another company to work with. I had a similar problem in Ohio. The map for my property showed it to be in a flood zone because of a creek on one edge. I explained to the mortgage company that the change of elevation between the creek and my house was >30'. They looked at the survey, saw that I was right and dropped the requirement.

On another note, if you're on the refinancing treadmill, take a look at refinancing through a home equity loan. Your initial monthly payments will be higher, but you build equity much faster and closing costs are much lower.

We lived on a lake for several years and out of the blue our loan was sold to another bank. We got a letter telling us we needed to carry flood insurance.

We had the town write a letter that was co signed by the Army Corp of Engineers that the elevation of our property caused no flood risk. The building inspector in our town also lived on the lake so he had a stake in the process.

It would be much cheaper to find another lender or hire an engineer to certify that your property is not in damger.

When we were building our present house our lender talked about flood insurance and I just sent them pictures of the creeks in their 30' to eighty foot ravines. That ended the need for flood insurance.

Good luck

When I write flood insurance policies, I sometimes come across two different zone determinations. I just submit the one that is more favorable to the owner. Your county, or township, engineer may be able to put your mind at ease (and provide the document you need). Good luck. It's generally a pain to work with any government entity.

There is always the alternative of telling them to stick it. I think I'd be willing to pay a little more interest in place of a $2200 insurance requirement. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

Joe we went through the same thing here in the spring when choosing a building site. The maps had been drawn up in the 50's before the road had been built. The maps were sort of vague. After the inspection the loan committee met and approved the site as being out of the flood zone but it was close on the map. I think the insurance would have been mandatory though without the zone approval.

After seeing the site in person the guy said he thought that it had been flooded in the past but Noah drug as he passed through. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

Patrick