Note: This guest post is by David A. Thompson, CPCU, AAI, API, CRIS.
Did you know that flooding, not hurricanes, is the most frequent and costly natural disaster? One report stated that almost 90 percent of natural disasters involve flooding, and since 2000 flooding has cost U.S. taxpayers $850 billion. A vast majority of flood events are uninsured. Over 75 percent of flood damage from Hurricanes Irma and Harvey in 2017 was uninsured. Hurricane Ian in 2022 came ashore in the Lee County (Ft. Myers) area. Data supplied by FEMA showed that only 30 percent of the properties in that county had flood insurance, and amazingly only 50.4 percent of structures in high risk flood zones were protected by flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).