Review other regulations, such whether you can elevate your home with fill, columns, or crawl spaces.Make sure your home is built with all usable spaces above your BFE.Risk mitigation is a good way to keep your insurance premiums from going up. If you live in a flood zone with a base flood elevation, you may want to reduce your flood risk and its subsequent damage. Tips for homes with a base flood elevation Without flood insurance, you’re left to pay for all losses on your own. Moreover, an inch of water can cause more than $25,000 in property damage. Climate change has caused more frequent and bigger natural disasters and more homes are at risk. If you don’t have flood insurance and are required to, your lender may purchase a policy on your behalf and bill it through your escrow account.Įven if you aren’t required to maintain flood insurance, you may want to get a policy if you’re in a flood zone. Lenders are particularly stringent about meeting flood insurance if they provide loans from the: One important requirement that comes into play because of the designation is that federally backed or regulated mortgage lenders can only loan money to people with flood insurance. Does a base flood elevation require flood insurance?Īll flood zones with base flood elevations are also named as Special Flood Hazard Areas with a significant risk for flood. All of your livable space should be above the BFE, and you may also want to place electrical, heating, air conditioning, and plumbing systems above your base flood elevation to reduce damage during a 100-year flood. Once you have your property’s base flood elevation, you determine where the lowest level of the house should be. Homeowners and builders can also use BFEs when building or renovating a home. If a home’s lowest level is above the area’s BFE, then floodwaters are less likely to reach it, and the insurer can charge a lower rate. This is important for determining flood insurance premiums. Insurance companies compare base flood elevations to the lowest floor of a structure to try and anticipate its chances for experiencing flood damage. This number represents the expected height rounded to the nearest foot, so EL 14 represents a base flood elevation of approximately 14 feet. Property owners in SFHAs have to get flood insurance.īase flood elevations are represented on FEMA maps below the flood zone as EL plus a number (i.e., EL 14). Other flood zones that start with either an A or a V are also SFHAs, but they don’t have base flood elevations. They are:įEMA also designates these flood zones as Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps base flood elevations for several flood zones. “Base flood” refers to a flood that has a 1% chance of being either equaled or exceeded in a given area in a given year. BFE, meaning base flood elevation, is the level of surface water anticipated to reach during a base flood.
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