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		<title>Hurricane Harvey: Why 85% of homeowners in Houston don't have federal flood insurance — Quartz</title>

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			<span class="kicker">100 YEAR FLOOD</span>
		<h1 itemprop="headline">Why 85% of Houston homeowners have no flood insurance</h1>	<div class="item-meta-mobile"><div class="byline item-meta-row">
	<h5>Written by</h5>

	
		
			
			<a href="https://qz.com/author/htimmonsqz/" class="author-name" data-index="0" itemprop="author">Heather Timmons</a>

			
			
			
		
		
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			<span class="timestamp" itemprop="datePublished">August 29, 2017</span>
	
	
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			<a href="https://qz.com/author/htimmonsqz/" class="author-name" data-index="0" itemprop="author">Heather Timmons</a>

			
			
			
		
		
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			<span class="timestamp" itemprop="datePublished">August 29, 2017</span>
	
	
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<p>Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in Houston, Texas alone by Hurricane Harvey. The long-term damage from the catastrophic flooding engulfing the US&rsquo;s Gulf Coast is expected to cost companies, small businesses, and homeowners as much as $100 billion, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-27/harvey-s-cost-reaches-catastrophe-as-modelers-see-many-uninsured">according to Imperial Capital</a>. The insurance industry alone may pay out $10-$20 billion, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/28/jpmorgan-predicts-harvey-will-be-a-top-10-most-costly-hurricane-for-insurance-industry.html">JP Morgan estimates.</a></p>
<p>While big corporations will probably survive the hit, many individual homeowners in Houston could be forced into debt or bankruptcy because they don&rsquo;t have flood insurance. That&rsquo;s despite the fact that scientists <a href="https://qz.com/1064364/hurricane-harvey-houstons-flooding-made-worse-by-unchecked-urban-development-and-wetland-destruction/">have been warning for years</a> that unchecked development and climate change <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/08/27/546603361/houstons-explosive-growth-amid-disregard-of-flood-preparedness">could cause severe flooding in Houston</a>.</p>
<p>As of August 2016, just 15% of the 1.6 million homes in Harris County, where Houston is located, had flood insurance, according to emailed data from the Insurance Information Institute, and only 28% of the homes in &ldquo;high-risk&rdquo; areas for flooding.</p>
<div class="inline-ad" id="inline-1063985-1"></div><p>That&rsquo;s because only US homeowners in the &ldquo;100-year floodplain&rdquo;&mdash;areas that have a 1% chance of flooding in any given year&mdash;have to buy flood insurance, and then only if they&rsquo;re taking out a federal mortgage loan or their private lender specifically requires it. This flood insurance in the US is mostly handled by an outdated, <a href="https://qz.com/1064109/is-the-national-flood-insurance-program-running-out-of-money/">heavily debt-laden</a> government scheme, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The NFIP&rsquo;s data determining which zones are flood zones can be years, or even decades, <a href="http://www.rff.org/files/document/file/RFF-DP-17-03.pdf">out of date</a> (pdf, p. 3). Climate change has exacerbated the problem, making storms <a href="https://qz.com/1062574/hurricane-harvey-and-climate-change-did-rising-temperatures-and-sea-levels-make-harvey-worse/">potentially more destructive</a> and raising sea levels along the Texas coast.</p>
<p>The end result is that many Houston homeowners outside the 100-year floodplain have been <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/harvey">flooded several times</a> in just the last few years, and most city homeowners don&rsquo;t have flood insurance now. More than 50% of Houston&rsquo;s homes in &ldquo;high&rdquo; and &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; flood risk areas are not in designated flood zones, <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170828005509/en/CoreLogic-Analysis-Shows-50-Percent-Properties-Houston">according to CoreLogic</a>, a property information company.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There are some early indications that this is going to have an exceptionally large impact on the number of people who are totally uninsured,&rdquo; says Howard Mills, the global insurance regulatory leaders at consulting and accounting firm Deloitte.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Those folks will be eligible to receive small amounts of disaster assistance, but it won&rsquo;t be enough to rebuild their home or help them move somewhere safe, or elevate their home,&rdquo; said Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst on water issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council. &ldquo;These people are in a situation that no one wants to find themselves in.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="inline-ad" id="inline-1063985-2"></div><p>While consumer groups and news outlets in Texas have recommended that homeowners buy flood insurance in recent years, not many have. People may not know they don&rsquo;t have it, or may have decided it&rsquo;s just too expensive, says <span class="il">Sam</span> Friedman, the insurance research leader for the Deloitte Center for Financial Services. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t want to make the investment,&rdquo; he said, and they rationalize that a major flood is unlikely to happen to them.</p>
<p>While Harvey may make some of them reconsider, there&rsquo;s no such thing as retroactive insurance. Meanwhile, The Trump administration&rsquo;s proposed budget would <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-budget-idUSKBN16R2FT">cut $190 million</a> from the flood insurance program&mdash;specifically, from the funds allocated for updating those old flooding maps. That means people are likely to keep on building where they&rsquo;re at risk of flooding, and not buying insurance.</p>
<h2><a href="https://qz.com/1063639/how-to-help-houston-flood-victims-donating-and-volunteering-for-harvey-relief/">Read this next: What you can do to help people hit by Hurricane Harvey</a></h2>
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	QZ.bootstrap = {"https:\/\/qz.com\/api\/article\/1063985\/":{"version":3,"header":{"name":"Article","path":"article\/1063985\/","slug":"article","type":"article"},"items":[{"id":1063985,"title":"Why 85% of Houston homeowners have no flood insurance","slug":"hurricane-harvey-why-85-of-homeowners-in-houston-dont-have-federal-flood-insurance","permalink":"https:\/\/qz.com\/1063985\/hurricane-harvey-why-85-of-homeowners-in-houston-dont-have-federal-flood-insurance\/","date":{"published":"2017-08-29 14:07:26","updated":"2017-08-29 15:15:40","pretty":"August 29, 2017"},"postType":"article","summary":"Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in Houston, Texas alone by Hurricane Harvey. The long-term damage from the catastrophic flooding engulfing the US&#8217;s&hellip;","inlineAds":["inline-1063985-1","inline-1063985-2"],"content":"\n<p>Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in Houston, Texas alone by Hurricane Harvey. The long-term damage from the catastrophic flooding engulfing the US&rsquo;s Gulf Coast is expected to cost companies, small businesses, and homeowners as much as $100 billion, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-08-27\/harvey-s-cost-reaches-catastrophe-as-modelers-see-many-uninsured\">according to Imperial Capital<\/a>. The insurance industry alone may pay out $10-$20 billion, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2017\/08\/28\/jpmorgan-predicts-harvey-will-be-a-top-10-most-costly-hurricane-for-insurance-industry.html\">JP Morgan estimates.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>While big corporations will probably survive the hit, many individual homeowners in Houston could be forced into debt or bankruptcy because they don&rsquo;t have flood insurance. That&rsquo;s despite the fact that scientists <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/1064364\/hurricane-harvey-houstons-flooding-made-worse-by-unchecked-urban-development-and-wetland-destruction\/\">have been warning for years<\/a> that unchecked development and climate change <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2017\/08\/27\/546603361\/houstons-explosive-growth-amid-disregard-of-flood-preparedness\">could cause severe flooding in Houston<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As of August 2016, just 15% of the 1.6 million homes in Harris County, where Houston is located, had flood insurance, according to emailed data from the Insurance Information Institute, and only 28% of the homes in &ldquo;high-risk&rdquo; areas for flooding.<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-ad\" id=\"inline-1063985-1\"><\/div><p>That&rsquo;s because only US homeowners in the &ldquo;100-year floodplain&rdquo;&mdash;areas that have a 1% chance of flooding in any given year&mdash;have to buy flood insurance, and then only if they&rsquo;re taking out a federal mortgage loan or their private lender specifically requires it. This flood insurance in the US is mostly handled by an outdated, <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/1064109\/is-the-national-flood-insurance-program-running-out-of-money\/\">heavily debt-laden<\/a> government scheme, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The NFIP&rsquo;s data determining which zones are flood zones can be years, or even decades, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rff.org\/files\/document\/file\/RFF-DP-17-03.pdf\">out of date<\/a> (pdf, p. 3). Climate change has exacerbated the problem, making storms <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/1062574\/hurricane-harvey-and-climate-change-did-rising-temperatures-and-sea-levels-make-harvey-worse\/\">potentially more destructive<\/a> and raising sea levels along the Texas coast.<\/p>\n<p>The end result is that many Houston homeowners outside the 100-year floodplain have been <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/graphics\/harvey\">flooded several times<\/a> in just the last few years, and most city homeowners don&rsquo;t have flood insurance now. More than 50% of Houston&rsquo;s homes in &ldquo;high&rdquo; and &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; flood risk areas are not in designated flood zones, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20170828005509\/en\/CoreLogic-Analysis-Shows-50-Percent-Properties-Houston\">according to CoreLogic<\/a>, a property information company.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There are some early indications that this is going to have an exceptionally large impact on the number of people who are totally uninsured,&rdquo; says Howard Mills, the global insurance regulatory leaders at consulting and accounting firm Deloitte.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Those folks will be eligible to receive small amounts of disaster assistance, but it won&rsquo;t be enough to rebuild their home or help them move somewhere safe, or elevate their home,&rdquo; said Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst on water issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council. &ldquo;These people are in a situation that no one wants to find themselves in.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-ad\" id=\"inline-1063985-2\"><\/div><p>While consumer groups and news outlets in Texas have recommended that homeowners buy flood insurance in recent years, not many have. People may not know they don&rsquo;t have it, or may have decided it&rsquo;s just too expensive, says <span class=\"il\">Sam<\/span> Friedman, the insurance research leader for the Deloitte Center for Financial Services. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t want to make the investment,&rdquo; he said, and they rationalize that a major flood is unlikely to happen to them.<\/p>\n<p>While Harvey may make some of them reconsider, there&rsquo;s no such thing as retroactive insurance. Meanwhile, The Trump administration&rsquo;s proposed budget would <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-trump-budget-idUSKBN16R2FT\">cut $190 million<\/a> from the flood insurance program&mdash;specifically, from the funds allocated for updating those old flooding maps. That means people are likely to keep on building where they&rsquo;re at risk of flooding, and not buying insurance.<\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/1063639\/how-to-help-houston-flood-victims-donating-and-volunteering-for-harvey-relief\/\">Read this next: What you can do to help people hit by Hurricane Harvey<\/a><\/h2>\n","hero":{"id":1064424,"alt":"Vehicles sits half submerged in flood waters in a residential area in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas, U.S., August 27, 2017.  REUTERS\/Ernest Scheyder - RTX3DJ9K","caption":"Houston, Aug. 27.","credit":"Reuters\/Ernest Scheyder","width":4032,"height":2268,"aspectRatio":1.7777777777778,"url":"https:\/\/qzprod.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/08\/rtx3dj9k1-e1503970746401.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=4032","size":"extra-large"},"kicker":"100 YEAR FLOOD","seoTitle":"Hurricane Harvey: Why 85% of homeowners in Houston don&#039;t have federal flood insurance","facebookDescription":"Some homeowners who don&#039;t have flood insurance could be forced into debt or bankruptcy.","edition":"global","taxonomies":{"obsession":[],"tags":[{"name":"100 year flood","slug":"100-year-flood"},{"name":"100 year flood zones","slug":"100-year-flood-zones"},{"name":"100 year floodplain","slug":"100-year-floodplain"},{"name":"500 year flood","slug":"500-year-flood"},{"name":"Congress","slug":"congress"},{"name":"CoreLogic","slug":"corelogic"},{"name":"Donald Trump","slug":"donald-trump"},{"name":"evacuate","slug":"evacuate"},{"name":"fema","slug":"fema"},{"name":"flood insurance","slug":"flood-insurance"},{"name":"Houston","slug":"houston"},{"name":"Hurricane Harvey","slug":"hurricane-harvey"},{"name":"insurance","slug":"insurance"},{"name":"jp morgan","slug":"jp-morgan"},{"name":"national flood insurance program","slug":"national-flood-insurance-program"},{"name":"Natural Resources Defense Council","slug":"natural-resources-defense-council"},{"name":"NFIP","slug":"nfip"},{"name":"NRDC","slug":"nrdc"},{"name":"Texas","slug":"texas"}],"qz_series":[],"topic":[{"name":"Politics and policy","slug":"politics-and-policy"}]},"byline":{"authors":[{"name":"Heather Timmons","username":"htimmonsqz","url":"https:\/\/qz.com\/author\/htimmonsqz\/","twitter":"HeathaT"}],"type":"author","label":"Written by"},"share":{"twitter":"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2F1063985&text=Why%2085%25%20of%20Houston%20homeowners%20have%20no%20flood%20insurance&via=qz","facebook":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2F1063985%2Fhurricane-harvey-why-85-of-homeowners-in-houston-dont-have-federal-flood-insurance%2F&caption=qz.com%20%7C%20By%20Heather%20Timmons","linkedin":"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2F1063985%2Fhurricane-harvey-why-85-of-homeowners-in-houston-dont-have-federal-flood-insurance%2F&title=Why%2085%25%20of%20Houston%20homeowners%20have%20no%20flood%20insurance&summary=Tens%20of%20thousands%20of%20people%20have%20been%20displaced%20in%20Houston%2C%20Texas%20alone%20by%20Hurricane%20Harvey.%20The%20long-term%20damage%20from%20the%20catastrophic%20flooding%20engulfing%20the%20US%E2%80%99s%E2%80%A6&source=Quartz","email":"mailto:?subject=Quartz%3A%20Why%2085%25%20of%20Houston%20homeowners%20have%20no%20flood%20insurance&body=https%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2F1063985%2Fhurricane-harvey-why-85-of-homeowners-in-houston-dont-have-federal-flood-insurance%2F%0A%0ATens%20of%20thousands%20of%20people%20have%20been%20displaced%20in%20Houston%2C%20Texas%20alone%20by%20Hurricane%20Harvey.%20The%20long-term%20damage%20from%20the%20catastrophic%20flooding%20engulfing%20the%20US%E2%80%99s%E2%80%A6%0A%0ASign%20up%20for%20the%20Quartz%20Daily%20Brief%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fquartzdailybrief.","whatsapp":"whatsapp:\/\/send?text=Why%2085%25%20of%20Houston%20homeowners%20have%20no%20flood%20insurance%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2F1063985%2Fhurricane-harvey-why-85-of-homeowners-in-houston-dont-have-federal-flood-insurance%2F"},"peer39":[9459,9603,9736,1908,9456,9389,9390,9357,9365,9521,9506,9504,9522,9519,9507,9597,9369,9684,9688,9397,22057,19680,18899]}]}};
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