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Community Corner

Flood Insurance Craziness!!!

I have been fighting flood insurance increases for almost a year...  It is unbelievable how far a homeowner needs to go in order to get things correct when the NFIP has the wrong information...or is it they want the wrong information in order to charge more for premiums!I have sent a letter of complaint to FEMA/NFIP and  I recieved a response from them today stateing that everything is right we were just underpaying for all these years.  I am not taking that as an answer so my response is as follows.
Dear Mr. Zaika,
Thank you for responding and I would like to discuss a few problems with my insurance coverages and premiums.  I am aware of the problem that the insurance company has found with our home and I have to say I take great issue with how the premium was changed after we paid the bill.  My clients would never appreciate or pay an additional bill after they paid a bill for the same services.  I have owned this home for a number of years and NOTHING has changed.  It has always been this way since it was built in 1985.  Now, they changed the playing ground so that it is unaffordable.  We have done all the flood remediation with our own money, that was requested by my insurance company such as, filling in the crawlspace to level and adding more vents as seen per insurance inspector and yet another Elevation Certificate.  This was not an easy task since the insurance company didn't pay us what was needed to rebuild our home.  All the work that we have done was to help us stay at an affordable premium while trying to save money to lift our home.  FEMA is allowing four years to lift our home, but I have to say the insurance premiums prevent this time frame for all middle to low income homeowners after being devastated by Sandy.  This is just cruel to do to families.  We are dealing with a tremendous amount of finacial and emotional stress, to say the least, so why would anyone think that this was alright?  Now, even after all the remediation work that we have done the insurance premium is still over the amount that it should be!  A home on the water has better premiums than we do?  I do know since being a member of Stop Fema Now that Biggert-Waters has had 'some what' of a fix so I just can not comprehend the amount they are expecting us to pay.  It is unrealistic thinking that everyone that lives near water is a millionair...we are not!  I keep hearing from senators and congressmen that we should pay this premium and when they figure out how to "implement" it they will refund our moneys.  That again is unrealistic.  First, were do we come up with that kind of money to sit and leave tied up until the government decides they got it figured out.  Let alone send money back!  Lets get real for a moment...neither will never happen for many.  And for us, I am seeing that isn't even the case for our home.  They just decided that my premium wasn't high enough and they aren't correcting what we have remediated to obtain a proper affordable premium for our coverages!   

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