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Most high-risk properties in Nebraska and Iowa don't have flood insurance

A Nebraska Game and Parks airboat removes a family from a flooded house in Gibbon, Nebraska, on July 10, 2019.

Patrice Northam can’t go through any more years like 2019 and 2011 — wondering if the Missouri River will wash away her possessions and leave her homeless.

So the Council Bluffs woman took out her credit card and bought flood insurance.

“I’m not going through a whole year of being constantly terrified, checking every day, watching the ditches fill up,” said the 56-year-old who is on disability. “If we flood, there’s nothing left. I won’t have anything. I have no backup.”

The clock is ticking on flood insurance for the 2020 flood season, and people like Northam are paying attention.

Nebraska and Iowa have seen about a 10% increase this year over last in property owners purchasing federal flood insurance polices, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nebraska is up to 9,237 policies, while Iowa has 13,088.

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But that’s a fraction of the number of properties at high risk of flooding, and it’s substantially less than the number of policies in effect just eight years ago, according to FEMA.

Christopher Parsons, an insurance program specialist for FEMA, said that only 12% of high-risk Iowa properties are insured and 16.2% in Nebraska, as of October 2019.

And that has flood experts concerned.

First, because this year brings a higher risk of flooding than normal, according to the National Weather Service.

And second, because policies typically require a 30-day waiting period before taking effect. That means the longer people wait to buy a policy, the more likely the policy won’t be in effect if, and when, flooding occurs. Indeed, ice jam flooding already has occurred on the Elkhorn and Platte Rivers.

“The best defense for any home or business ... is flood insurance, plain and simple,” Paul Taylor, regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said recently.

High-risk properties are those considered to have a 1% risk of flooding in any given year (the so-called 100-year portion of a floodplain). These can be found along creeks and rivers throughout the region (including along the Papillion Creek system in the Omaha metro area).

The risk assignment can be misleading, though, because the overall period on record is short, and some flood risk maps are outdated and understate the threat. Also, even if the risk estimate were accurate, it is cumulative, so a property with a 1% risk has a 26% chance of flooding over the life of a 30-year mortgage, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Nearly the entire eastern half of Nebraska and much of Iowa are at a higher than normal risk of flooding this year because soils are saturated and rivers are high. Some areas are especially at risk, including the Missouri River south of Plattsmouth, the North Fork of the Elkhorn River and the Salt Creek, according to the flood forecast issued last week by the weather service.

Given the risk, why don’t more people purchase flood insurance? Jeff Brewer, vice president of public affairs for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, cited multiple reasons.

“In general, people underestimate their risk,” he said. “For some people, it’s cost ... to save money, they roll the dice and hope they don’t have a loss. In some years, that may pay off; in some years they may get caught.”

For Northam, money has been the problem. Her apartment complex is near a flood-prone area, along the stretch of Interstate 29 in northern Council Bluffs that routinely floods. But in terms of purchasing insurance, she’s lucky. The complex sits just outside the 1% high-risk zone, so her premium, at $236 a year, was within reach.

“I feel much better because with flood insurance, if we flood, I’ll have money to start over,” she said.

Flood insurance has long been problematic for the government because for years premiums didn’t reflect the risk. But when Congress acted in 2012 to make the program more solvent by boosting premiums, people dropped their insurance.

The number of Nebraska policies has dropped by 30% since then, and in Iowa, the number has dropped about 20%. Those declines are in spite of a follow-up law, the 2014 Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, that acted to slow, but not prevent, increases in insurance premiums.

Parsons said flood insurance premiums vary by risk, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars a year.

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Water surrounded a farm west of Hamburg, Iowa, in August 2011, as Missouri River floodwaters were starting to recede. The Omaha Public Power District’s Nebraska City plant is in the background. The area flooded because of a break in the Percival levee. A levee protecting the city of Hamburg was temporarily extended that year and the city was spared flooding, but it was a different story in 2019.

Here are some of the most common questions about flood insurance, and the answers from FEMA:

What does flood insurance cover, and what doesn’t it cover?

Flood insurance covers overland flooding that affects at least two properties or 2 acres. This can be flooding from a river, lake or even a water main. Importantly, however, the insurance doesn’t cover groundwater seepage. Indeed, Parsons said, no insurance covers flooding from seepage.

Seepage was a major problem in 2011’s historic flood on the Missouri River. Even though most levees held back the Missouri River during that summer-long flood, the water table rose on the land side of levees. As a result, groundwater seeped into basements and caused extensive damage, including causing foundations to collapse.

Who sells flood insurance?

Both the federal government and private insurers. Local insurance companies sell both federal and private policies. For more information on federal flood insurance, call: 800-427-4661.

Does the cost of insurance vary?

Yes, it’s based on risk, but premiums on federal flood insurance are standardized. Premiums set by private companies may vary.

What if I skip the flood insurance and hope for a federal disaster payout?

You’re unlikely to get a disaster payout because most flooding doesn’t qualify for federal disaster assistance. Flood insurance is your only guaranteed way of recouping losses from flooding.

Even if there is a federal disaster payment, the amounts paid to individuals are far smaller than flood insurance payments.

In 2019’s flooding, the average Nebraska flood insurance payment was $38,668, while the average Nebraska household received only $3,865 in federal disaster aid, according to FEMA data.

Homes are insured to at least $250,000 under federal flood insurance and businesses to at least $500,000.

About 1,000 households and businesses filed claims on their federal flood insurance in Nebraska in 2019. Disaster payouts provide a glimpse into how many households didn’t have insurance but sustained damage — about 7,000 households received disaster aid.

Flood of 2019: The aftermath and the recovery

Flood of 2019: The aftermath and the recovery

Nebraska’s disastrous weather in 2019 caused more than $3.4 billion in losses, according to a recently released federal report. Read more

A 92-year-old dam that collapsed March 14, 2019 amid had been classified by state inspectors last year as having a “significant” risk of causing damage.

A man who lived in a home below the dam, Kenny Angel, was swept away in the collapse and is presumed dead, and a quarter mile section of U.S. Highway 281 was washed out. Read more

A four-member team from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, a national nonprofit organization, will conduct an independent review of the Spencer dam.

The review will focus on what can be learned about the dam collapse to guide future dam construction, according to Lori Arthur, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Department. Read more

Even the U.S. Air Force couldn’t stop the Mighty Missouri River from flooding Offutt Air Force Base. Between March 16 and 17 sandbagging efforts were called off as flood waters began to rise. Read more

Six months after what 55th Wing officials describe as “historic and disastrous” flooding swamped one-third of Offutt Air Force Base and destroyed 137 structures, the expected costs of rebuilding continued to mount.

Lt. Col. Chris Conover, who spearheaded the recovery and reconstruction project, said in September that the figure stood at $790 million in September. He warned the cost most likely would rise further — perhaps even hitting $1 billion. Read more

The Platte River swelled into Fremont, turning the city into an island.

Shelters in Fremont alone counted up to 1,100 people, with more evacuees expected from Snyder, Nebraska. And those numbers don’t capture the swaths of people riding out the flood in hotel rooms or crashing on the couches of family and friends.

Those who decided to evacuate left by plane, train line and automobile. There were departures by boat, by airboat and by massive military vehicles with jacked-up frames capable of cruising through waterlogged roads. Read more

Hundreds of people filled Christensen Field Arena in Fremont to hear a National Weather Service update on this year’s flood risk Feb. 4.

The crowd received a nuanced, but somewhat reassuring, explanation from National Weather Service hydrologist Dave Pearson. Read more

Before the water even reached the community, Paradise Lake residents were sent mixed messages. 

Law enforcement officials went door to door encouraging residents to evacuate, Paradise Lakes residents received a different message from their landlord: Your homes are safe. Read more

The Bellevue City Council voted to condemn the community and told residents that they had until the end of July to take action on removing their homes. The remaining structures were expected to be razed by a city-hired company in early August.

Jim Ristow, Bellevue’s city administrator, said in August that officials are now taking a cautious approach moving forward because they don’t want taxpayers to be on the hook for the estimated $1.2 million needed for demolition.

Paradise Lakes’ owner, Howard “Howdy” Helm, has told the city that he can’t afford the cost of demolition. Read more

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sought bids to close the breach in the south bank of the Platte River that had stranded the city’s water treatment plant during the March flooding.

For months, the plant was accessible only by boat. Now, the water is gone, but Plattsmouth officials have wondered for how long. Read more

Plattsmouth notched a major victory in September when its flood-battered water treatment plant got back up and running, ending months of water rationing.

But the city’s ongoing battle with the waters of the Platte River isn’t over. Read more

Winslow floods.

One in 1996 brought water inside town and into basements, but it was nothing like the surge of water that clobbered Winslow in mid-March, when historic flooding struck parts of central and eastern Nebraska.

So the residents of this little village — where the population that hovered around 100 before disaster struck — are pondering a pivotal question about its future. Go should they stay or should they go? Read more

A group of state and federal officials who met in Winslow in January said plenty of hurdles stand in the village's way.

Those obstacles include state law, the likely millions of dollars needed to put in new streets and utilities in Winslow 2.0 and its dwindling population.

"We all want what's best for Winslow, I want to make that abundantly clear," said Molly Bargmann, a recovery supervisor for the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. "We want to get to yes, but there's a lot of no's right now." Read more

On St. Patrick’s Day weekend 2019, a violent chute of water raged through a gash in the levee that for decades protected the Nebraska National Guard’s main training site from the Platte River. Floodwaters surged into classrooms, barracks and offices, wrecking furniture and tools and leaving a muddy watermark 5 feet high on inside walls.

The Nebraska National Guard learned in January that it will receive full funding, totaling $62.3 million, to fully rebuild the Camp Ashland training site, according to a statement released Wednesday by the state’s adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Daryl Bohac. Read more

Tons of sand, sediment and silt — some in dunes as high as 10 feet — were scattered across the eastern half to two-thirds of the state by the March flooding. In some areas, washed-out cornstalks are 3 to 4 feet deep. Tree limbs are in piles and topsoil was washed away. Read more

Trish and Salvador Duran hosted Christmas this year for their extended family, an act of hospitality that once seemed impossible after almost 4 feet of floodwater swept into their house in King Lake in March.

King Lake is an unincorporated area, a secluded neighborhood of 1 square mile that sits next to the Elkhorn River and not far from the Platte River, east of Valley and north of Waterloo. During historic flooding in March, the Elkhorn spilled out of its banks, sending water into almost all of the 111 homes in King Lake. Read more

Pacific Junction, with a population of less than 500, was hit hard by levee failures in March that sent floodwaters streaming into town, filling every structure with feet of water. It wasn't until mid-April that the last batch of residents could return to their homes and businesses and start clearing out flood-soaked possessions. Read more

Mills County Democrats worried all month whether many of the 470 former residents of this flooded town would attend a caucus Monday.

Last March, the Missouri River inundated all 210 homes and businesses here, and a caucus day drive through town showed the extent of damage 10 months later. Most local homes, storefronts and gathering spaces remain boarded up. Only about 20 households have moved back so far, officials say, and the only evidence of the presidential race was a single campaign sign in front of the rebuilt home of Rick and Cherry Parham. Read more

Patrice Northam

nancy.gaarder@owh.com, 402-444-1102

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Patrice Northam

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