The Homeowner Flood Affordability Insurance Act (HFIAA) requires FEMA to clearly communicate full flood risk determinations to individual property owners (Section 28, Clear Communication of Risk). Therefore, starting January 2017, NFIP policyholders will be receiving the letters directly from FEMA as notification that a review of their property’s flood risk has been done. In order to better reflect the risk and circumstances, FEMA created 7 different categories of letters, labeled A-G:
- LETTER A – Buildings Newly Mapped Into A High-Risk Flood Area (view sample .pdf);
- LETTER B – Buildings Standard-Rated, And Outside of the High-Risk Flood Area (view sample .pdf);
- LETTER C – Buildings Grandfather Rated, And In A High-Risk Flood Area (view sample .pdf);
- LETTER D – Primary Residential Pre-FIRM Buildings In A High-Risk Flood Area, Paying A Discounted Rate (view sample .pdf);
- LETTER E – Non-Primary Pre-FIRM Buildings In A High-Risk Flood Area, Paying A Discounted Rate (view sample .pdf);
- LETTER F – Buildings Mapped Outside Of A High-Risk Flood Area, And Insured With A Preferred Risk Policy;
- LETTER G – Buildings That Are post-FIRM, In A High-Risk Flood Area, And Paying A Rate Based On True Flood Risk.
HFIAA requires NFIP flood insurance companies to do a new flood determination on every home or building on which they write a flood insurance policy. The new determinations are based on the current FEMA flood map. This may result in an incorrect rating change to the flood insurance policies of your clients, which have been correctly rated based on a prior version of the FEMA flood map. If your clients call you about a rating change to their flood policies, we encourage you to contact us immediately so that we can determine whether or not the rating change is correct.
Click here to learn more about FEMA letters.