We’re gonna talk about some basic concepts, terms, that are being used in the National flood insurance program.

I recently came back from a deployment handling the devastating floods that they had in Louisiana.
At the same time, we were having Hurricane Matthew along the east coast. Property owner was still in the recovery phase. Many of them had no flood insurance.

So what we’re gonna talk about today is how you, as the insurance agent, or any other stakeholder that we have, might be able to address some of the issues, or might be able to provide general information to your clients, to your fellow coworkers, to anybody else, about the National flood insurance program.

These are just basic concepts and terms.

How good is E and O?

 So as an insurance agent, have you ever said, or has your client said, they don’t need flood insurance. They don’t want flood insurance?

Or have you told your client it’s not covered’ you’re not in a flood area, you’re not in a flood zone, it’s not available, when in fact it is?

In 2013, our Colorado floods out here were devastating for people who live on a hill.
So, how are you going to feel, when it happens to your client, or even when it happens to you?
In our Louisiana flooding, we had many insurance officers who suffered damaged one, two,
Three, ten feet of water in their offices, and they were not prepared for it. But what you need to do as an insurance agent to protect your client, is what were gonna talk about today.

What is the job of an agent?

 So, your job as an insurance agent is to identify what risks your clients are exposed to. Whether its fire, flood, earthquake, tornado. Your job is to look at those risks and to provide insurance in order to cover that risk because you’re counselling to them to not have insurance when those risks happen, it becomes an awfully emotional, physical and financial liability to your client.

So, they need to cover their risk, and a lot of them feel like it’s not gonna happen to them.
But you just never know. So, if they say they don’t need it, they don’t want it, they only want what the mortgage company requires them to have.

You need to counsel them of what their risk is, and then have them sign a disclaimer to be sure that you protect yourself, and your errors and emissions.

Checklist for the property owner.

One of the things that you can counsel your client on is to have a team and there are several members of that team that they might want to contact. The first person that they seem to want to talk to, is the real estate professional.

Particularly if they’re buying a new home, or buying a business. They need to know what their risks are; what are they looking at?

So, the real estate is their first line of defence, when it comes to what risk exposures they have.
The next person they want to talk to you is the community flood expert, the flood plain manager. The floodplain manager can be found in the permitting office, or planning, or community development.

Particularly if they’re building new, and that new construction might want to be built to a higher standard in order to meet what the upcoming maps are going to show as the risk being for come that specific space.