I wanted to share my recent experiences with flood insurance and also escrow accounts.
I live in Beaumont and when I bought my house several years ago the flood insurance was cheap, $300.00 per year. after a few years i got a notice that the area where I live was re-zoned and my flood premiums were going up which they did for several years. At the time of Hurricane Harvey I was paying $2,2200 per year. My home has never been flooded, not even during Harvey. I was able to get an elevation certificate ($450) and worked with my insurance agent and got it reduced by $1,200 per year. they even issued me a refund for the current year.
I have a mortgage on my home and I am paying my taxes and insurance through an escrow account. every year I receive an analysis on the account and it is adjusted based on increase/decrease of taxes and insurance. this year when I received the analysis my mortgage payment was going up $800.00 per month. I new there had to be some sort of clerical error so I called my mortgage company. They looked at their analysis and discovered they put in three annual insurance payments instead of one. It is being redone and corrected.
I share this for those that are paying high flood premiums and have never flooded there might be an opportunity for you to lower your premiums. Also, I typically do not study the escrow analysis every year but if this would have been a smaller error I probably wouldn't have noticed. I will be paying closer attention going forward.
I live in Beaumont and when I bought my house several years ago the flood insurance was cheap, $300.00 per year. after a few years i got a notice that the area where I live was re-zoned and my flood premiums were going up which they did for several years. At the time of Hurricane Harvey I was paying $2,2200 per year. My home has never been flooded, not even during Harvey. I was able to get an elevation certificate ($450) and worked with my insurance agent and got it reduced by $1,200 per year. they even issued me a refund for the current year.
I have a mortgage on my home and I am paying my taxes and insurance through an escrow account. every year I receive an analysis on the account and it is adjusted based on increase/decrease of taxes and insurance. this year when I received the analysis my mortgage payment was going up $800.00 per month. I new there had to be some sort of clerical error so I called my mortgage company. They looked at their analysis and discovered they put in three annual insurance payments instead of one. It is being redone and corrected.
I share this for those that are paying high flood premiums and have never flooded there might be an opportunity for you to lower your premiums. Also, I typically do not study the escrow analysis every year but if this would have been a smaller error I probably wouldn't have noticed. I will be paying closer attention going forward.