Flood insurance suffers from ill-informed, preconceived notions

Past disaster statistics reveal why flood coverage should be top of mind for consumers. Yet 57 million homes in the United States have significant flood exposure. Here, a truck sits partially submerged in a flooded North Carolina neighborhood after Hurricane Florence. (Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg)

Flood could indeed be considered the proverbial “red-headed stepchild” of insurance.

Consider this: Why do homeowners buy other types of insurance such as auto and homeowners but neglect the peril of flood? While regulators require homeowners and auto-owners to carry insurance on those assets, the only requirement for flood insurance is where a home is in a “high hazard risk area,” and even then, only if the homeowner has a federally-backed mortgage. In other words, it protects the banks but unfortunately not the 57 million homes in the U.S. that have significant flood exposure.