Will your flood insurance get more expensive?

This year, FEMA changed how it calculates risk “to provide more equity,” and is now incorporating more risk variables based on individual properties. These changes — known as Risk Rating 2.0—officially began for existing policyholders on April 1, 2022 and new policyholders this past October.  (Don’t get us wrong, we’re down with more equity, but it doesn’t seem like that’s actually what is happening.)

ACT NOW to help us change the NFIP to ensure that all families can afford flood insurance coverage. If you have flood insurance, we need you to call your insurance provider and ask for your new rate under Risk Rating 2.0. Please reply by email or call/text Jody at 732-575-0609 when you get your new rates.  (Let us know what they say, staff have tried it and not been able to get a straight answer, but also our insurance isn’t up for renewal for several months)

We wrote a whole article about this last year, and you can check it out here.  But here are some key points and background.  

FEMA finally updated the NFIP, but of course it didn’t include A SINGLE priority identified by us and other frontline communities to make flood insurance fair, forward thinking, and put families first.  The only good aspect is more accurate mapping, but if that’s making flood insurance less affordable, that’s one step forward and two steps back.  

Both the House and the Senate are worried about affordability for coastal communities. According to a letter signed by Senators Menendez and Booker (among others), “FEMA’s internal analysis shows that 900,000 policyholders, or nearly 20% of all policyholders will drop out of the program over the next 10 years due to unaffordable premiums under Risk Rating 2.0.” 

In other words: Risk Rating 2.0 could prove catastrophic for New Jersey residents, especially working class families who are at risk of being priced out of their homes by unaffordable flood insurance.