Hello and welcome. This is Nolan Formalarie with Discover NC Homes and Nolan’s News. And today I have Kara Herring with me from Don Bullard Insurance (https://www.donbullard.com).

Kara, thank you so much for coming. They’re located in Southport and Wilmington. I recommend them to all my clients! Also, they take care of all my personal insurance, so we really believe in them – great rates, great customer service.

Kara is here today to explain the various flood zones in our coastal region and, more importantly, what they mean when you are insuring your home.

Nolan
Kara, can you run us through the general flood zones in our area?

Kara
Sure! So obviously the one that everybody likes to see is your preferred zone. Mostly that’s what’s going to be. You’re going to see X as a preferred zone.

So what that means, and a lot of people think: okay, I’m not in a flood zone! – everybody’s in a flood zone, because every property has the potential to flood. Even if you’re in that preferred zone, you can still buy flood insurance.

A lot of people don’t think that you can, so you can still buy the flood insurance, and I do recommend it. And as a real estate agent, I would say you should recommend it as well.

The percentage is really high of preferred zone homes that still do have some flooding.

Nolan
It’s fairly inexpensive and, again, during our hurricane Florence, we had so many areas that we never thought would flood in “flood zone X” that flooded.

Kara
So you get the ground saturation and the rain water, which we had with Florence, and then you get the rising water.

So, differences in that preferred zone – again, you can buy it, but you need to be cognizant of a 30 day waiting period. We get calls all the time when there’s a storm out there looming, and everybody wants to buy flood. insurance. That’s great, but you’re not going to have it for this storm. It’s going to be a 30-day wait and your lender is not going to require it. But again, you can still purchase it, and a lot of people do.

From that we go into an AE zone.

Nolan
Okay. So X is the best, or the best you can be in, the next is AE, right?

Kara
Yes, the AE zone. That is a special flood hazard area. If you have a mortgage, the lender is gonna require that you have the flood coverage. But those rates can be very good, especially if it’s a newer construction, if it’s built to the current codes, you’ve got the proper venting. So you could see rates that are very comparable to the preferred zone, but you will have to carry that policy with a mortgage on the property.

Now, you can see some AE zones that are a high rate. That would bewhere it’s lower to the ground, maybe it was built before things changed. Maybe it’s not properly vented, in which case you could go in and put in proper venting to make sure that it’s vented properly. But again, typically what you’re going to see in an AE zone is that those rates are going to be far better than the biggie – the VE zone.

Nolan
What is VE?

Kara
I say it’s “very expensive”. No, it’s just basically a high velocity risk area. So typically you’re going to see your oceanfront homes, maybe even canal homes, on the waterway and on an island. Though there are properties that even on bald head that are in a preferred zone, on higher ground.

But you can tell if it’s low lying. If you see, as a buyer of real estate, if you see that VE zone, it’s going to be far more expensive typically than any of the others.

Nolan
Okay. And is there any other type of zone beyond that? Or are those just the three: the X, the AE, and the VE?

Kara
Yes. Basically those are going to be the three zones that you mostly see.

Nolan
OK, great! So, I think takeaways: no matter what zone you’re in, you are in a flood zone. You may not be required flood insurance, but why not get it, because it’s pretty inexpensive compared to what could happen.

Kara
Yes, and if you do have a flood, typically it’s going to be something that’s pretty catastrophic. You’re not going to have a $2,000 collect claim. Typically it’s gonna be, if you’ve got water, even if you’ve got two inches of water, you’re talking about quite a bit of damage there.

Nolan
Yes. So stay insured!

Again – Don Bullard Insurance! Kara, thank you, I appreciate it, and we’ll talk to you soon.

If you are interested in buying a home in the Brunswick area in North Carolina, check out our search page.

About Nolan Formalarie

Nolan Formalarie has been in the North Carolina Real Estate Industry for over 8 years and enjoys every minute of it. He is involved in every aspect of the industry including selling and purchasing residential property, home watch services, property management, association management and construction.