Risk & Business

Image via Wikipedia Due to Congress adjourning April 12 th without extending the National Flood Insurance Program , NFIP , the flood insurance program's authority to write new policies expired after midnight on March 28 th . It seems the agreement to continue the program was attached to legislation pertaining to unemployment benefits , which was blocked in the Senate from being voted on. As of right now, if you are pending the closing of a mortgage related to the purchase of real estate requiring flood coverage you are out of luck. This same situation occurred at the end of February and the program was closed until renewed by Congress on 3/2. Hopefully Congress will act on this quickly and reinstate the program retroactively to the current expiration date.

Areas of northern Ga. that have never flooded are now under water from a deluge of rain. The State climatologist says that Atlanta had not seen rain of the magnitude received in over a century. The Chattahoochee river broke through its banks and wreaked havoc on the surrounding areas. The total estimated damages will be in excess of 300 million dollars. What makes this worse is that only 20% of the claims will be covered by flood insurance . The rest of the damage will not. Many business owners neglect to consider flood insurance for their businesses. Like homeowner policies flood is not covered under business owner policies. A small entrepreneur can be put out of business by a large rain event and not be able to use his property insurance to cover the damage. Assess your area and place of business. If you are in a low lying part of town and vunerable to large runoff after a rain storm , then buy flood insurance. If you are near a riv...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife My previous posts were discussing hurricanes, particularly Hurricane Bill. In case it wasn't picked up on it's important to realize that the one coverage important to a business owner close to a large body of water (ocean) is FLOOD . If there is an active hurricane forecast it's important to realize that no amount of $$ will get you coverage that day. Get your flood insurance in place now, let's not wait until it's too late.