USA: Flood Insurance: Most Florida flood zone property not insured

As Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, an Associated Press analysis shows a steep drop in flood insurance across the state, including the areas most endangered by what could be a devastating storm surge.

In just five years, the state's total number of federal flood insurance policies has fallen by 15 percent, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency data.

Florida's property owners still buy far more federal flood insurance than any other state - 1.7 million policies, covering about $42 billion in assets - but most residents in hazard zones are badly exposed.

With 1,350 miles of coastline, the most in the continental United States, Florida has roughly 2.5 million homes in hazard zones, more than three times that of any other state, FEMA estimates. And yet, across Florida's 38 coastal counties, just 42 percent of these homes are covered.

In the counties being under at least partial evacuation orders Wednesday (Collier, Broward, Monroe and Miami-Dade), where 1.3 million houses are estimated to be in flood hazard zones, the percentage is an even lower 34.3 percent.

Florida's overall flood insurance rate for hazard-zone homes is just 41 percent. Fannie Mae ostensibly requires mortgage lenders to make sure property owners buy this insurance to qualify for federally backed loans, and yet in 59 percent of the cases, that insurance isn't being paid for.

Nationwide, only half the 10 million properties that need flood insurance have it, said Roy Wright, who runs the National Flood Insurance Program. He told the AP last week that he wants to double the number of policies sold nationally in the near future.

Read more: Most Florida flood zone property not insured

Europe's insurers seen escaping brunt of flood damage - by Chris Vellacott and Jonathan Gould

As insurers start counting the cost of devastating floods across central Europe, many of the region's businesses and households are not covered and will have to foot the bill themselves.

Nicolaus von Bomhard, chief executive of the world's largest reinsurer Munich Re, attributed under-insurance for flood risk in the worst affected areas to a legacy of insurers' past reluctance to offer services in the region.
While this has changed and insurers are now prepared to insure almost all the risk, under-insurance remains a problem in the region, he said.

"On the losses, I can't give any numbers, it's way too early, but the macroeconomic loss will be much bigger than the insured loss," he said at an insurance industry news conference on how insurers and governments could work to reduce the impact of natural disasters.

But while waters were still rising and thousands of Germans, Hungarians and Czechs were evacuating their homes, some industry specialists said they expect the insurance loss to fall short of the last big floods to hit the region in 2002

Read more: Europe's insurers seen escaping brunt of flood damage | Reuters