Hurricane Helene: Few homes in North Carolina had flood insurance

• Rainfall from Hurricane Helene caused severe flooding in western North Carolina, devastating communities.
• But less than 3 percent of properties in the state have flood insurance, leaving many unprotected.
• Part of the problem is that people falsely assume they’re not in danger, experts said.

Torrential rains from Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc across western North Carolina last week, with flooding that devastated local communities, killed dozens across the state, left many residents without running water or power, uprooted businesses and destroyed homes.

Precipitation collected by at least a dozen weather stations in the region, including near Asheville, reached the highest 3-day totals ever recorded during the event, ranging from nearly 13 inches to more than 31 inches, according to a report from North Carolina State Climate. Office.

But only about 2.6 percent of the state’s 4.3 million properties — or about 115,000 properties — had flood insurance in June 2024, according to private provider Neptune Flood Insurance, which analyzed data from the National Flood Insurance Program supported by the government. And that’s a 2.5 percent decline in coverage year over year from June 2023, Neptune said.

North Carolina Department of Insurance Communications Director Jason Tyson estimated that about 139,000 properties in the state have flood insurance through the NFIP.

No estimate includes private flood insurance. But the number of private flood insurance policies in the U.S. is small compared to the number of NFIP policies, according to a 2023 report by independent insurance provider PolicyGenius.

The North Carolina Joint Information Center told Business Insider it was too early to give estimates on the number of buildings damaged or the total cost of the damage.

Federal disaster assistance helps people who have lost their homes with mortgage payments, home loans or bill payments. But without flood insurance, many homeowners could be left with a significant financial burden.

Part of the problem with flood insurance is a common misconception that regular home insurance covers flooding, which is rarely the case, four experts with knowledge of flood insurance and disaster management told Business Insider.

“They just think, ‘Oh yeah, I have insurance. I have home owner insurance. I have State Farm or whatever. That has to cover it,” Trevor Burgess, President and CEO of Neptune Flood Insurance, told BI. “And no. They have to buy a separate policy.”

Another factor influencing why so few people have flood insurance is that it’s not compulsory for everyone – only homes and businesses with government-backed mortgages in areas that are designated as high flood risk areas are legally required to have it. flood insurance.

“One of the biggest factors in whether or not people get flood insurance is whether or not they need to have it,” Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, researcher and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia Climate School, said. said BI.

“So unless you live in one of these areas, one of these flood plains that triggers that, then a lot of people just don’t get flood insurance,” Schlegelmilch added.

Margaret Walls, senior researcher and director of the Climate Risk and Resilience Program at the nonprofit research institute Resources for the Future, said people also mistakenly believe that if they are not in an area at high risk of floods, then they are not at risk.

“There’s not a lot of homes that are in those designated flood zones relative to the total number of homes, but there’s still a lot of flood risk,” Walls said. “And that’s one of the biggest problems in the flood world is that the mapped areas where FEMA says you should have flood insurance are not the areas that are all at risk. There are a lot of areas where you are at risk. outside those mapped areas”.

Walls explained that people don’t understand their real risks.

“They think the map tells them their risks,” Walls said. “Actually, it’s not. It just tells them where to have the mandatory purchase of a flood insurance policy. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have risks when you’re outside that area. And as climate change happens, those risks rise.”

And the flood-ravaged areas of western North Carolina were largely not considered high flood risk areas. The North Carolina State Flood Risk Information System designates many of the counties in the region that were hardest hit by flooding after Helene as “minimum flood risk,” according to a map on their website.

“We almost always associate the risk of flooding with hurricanes and coastal storm surges in Florida, Louisiana and Texas,” Jeremy Porter, who leads climate implications research at First Street, a public benefit corporation that assesses climate risk, told The Associated Press. “We don’t think of western North Carolina and the Appalachian Mountains as an area that is at significant risk of flooding.”

And the perception that a particular place is safe from flooding contributes to the problem, Schlegelmilch suggested.

“This is one of those things that we’re looking at in areas like Asheville, North Carolina, that have been considered climate havens, where people have thought, ‘Well, I’m going to escape the worst of climate change and I’m going to move. there,” Schlegelmilch said. “And unfortunately, this is just an important reminder that we can’t get past this.”

Having insurance to protect your home and mitigate your financial risks is an important step, and more people need to take that precaution, Schlegelmilch said, a sentiment Walls and Burgess also echoed.

Yanjun Liao, an economist and fellow at Resources for the Future, added that people should be prepared even for unexpected flooding events like what happened in western North Carolina.

“I definitely think a lot more people need flood insurance,” Liao said. “Oftentimes, even people who live outside flood zones, 100-year flood zones and sometimes outside 500-year flood zones, can experience this kind of unexpected flood damage.”

Liao said the cost of flood insurance can be burdensome, especially for those who live in more disaster-prone areas. But the alternative can be even more expensive: rebuilding after a devastating storm.