I'm right in the middle of it right now.
I had one lady with a basement and first floor home. the basement was lived in by the daughter, the mother lived in the ground level.
There was no coverage for the basement which flooded. Insurance denied it, FEMA completely remodeled it.
catching on quickly to the fact that Uncle Sam would jump in and bail her out, when i presented the lady with her settlement check for covered damage on the ground level she asked me to also provide her with a denial letter.
confused, i asked why she would want a denial letter when i had paid her claim in full?
she openly and completely unashamedly said she wanted to present the denial letter to FEMA so they would think the insurance hadnt paid out on the remainder of the home so she could have FEMA remodel the house the way they did the basement.
i told her there was no way i could do that and left the residence.
When private insurance companies decide the risk outweigh the rewards of insuring in an area that is prone to flooding and tidal surge and the US Government turns around and insures those areas - it creates a situation that is easily taken advantage of.
the problem becomes that people take advantage of it on YOUR dime.
Trust me, it is absolutely heartbreaking to walk through someones home which had only days before been filled with 5 feet of water, taking pictures of their wrecked living spaces, their personal belongings strewn at nature's mercy now worthless. furnishings, decorations, belongings of all sorts caked with mud and sewage. then you have to tell them a review of their policy revealed no coverage for the type of water loss they have experienced. Knowing full well based on your experience that there are tens and tens of thousands of dollars in damages.
with tears in their eyes, they look to me and ask "what can we do?" or "what are we supposed to do now?"
its a tough situation... is there a genuine need for FEMA to insure? can it even be done without massive corruption and people taking advantage of it?
when a massive creek or river is only 30 feet from your back door and would only have to crest perhaps 5 feet vertically to flood your home - how could you not have flood insurance?
one frustrating thing i see ALL THE TIME is people just being unfamiliar with their homeowner's coverages. The policy language is written sort of like a EULA... but it is pretty clearly written comparitively. A person should be able to look at their policy and see where it clearly says "LOSSES NOT INSURED AGAINST:" and proceeds to list certain events that wont be covered, anyone evolved past a 3rd grade reading level can read it.
people will insist their policy covers a certain event when i show them black and white text that says other wise with their signatures on the document - they continue to argue that they thought otherwise. Sometimes, People just dont know what sort of coverage they've purchased and continue to pay for.
honestly, how many of you right now know whether or not the personal property in your vehicles right now Is or is not covered if the car burns to the ground? is it covered at all? if so what is the policy limit for personal property?
in the very least, with a tropical storm or hurricane 4 or 5 days away... those insurance document warrant at least a fleeting glance, in one healthy crap you could read it on the water-thrown.
The government has made the grave mistake of getting involved in Charity... perhaps keeping entire cities functioning that should have been ghost towns decades ago. and the more the government plays santa clause the more the people expect it.
it spirals out of control as we edge ever closer to an unrecoverable welfare charity state, and that just will not work