Frequently Asked Questions

It depends on what you're trying to understand and what decisions you're facing.

If you're not sure, the Analysis at $79 is the most common choice — it covers history, policy review, and gives you a solid foundation for decisions without overpaying for LOMA-specific analysis you may not need.

A person reviews every report. These are not automated flood zone lookups. John Richardson — a licensed insurance professional with flood insurance and FEMA mapping specialization — personally researches and prepares each report using FEMA's public records, the Flood Insurance Study for your property's jurisdiction, LOMA and LOMR amendment records, and the property information you provide.

The time that takes is why there's a turnaround window rather than instant delivery. It also means the analysis is specific to your address, not a generic zone description.

Standard turnaround is 2–3 business days for all tiers. Most reports are delivered in 1–2 business days. Complex properties — those near zone boundaries, with extensive amendment histories, or with unusual structural situations — may take the full 3 days.

Reports are delivered by email to the address provided at checkout. If your situation has a hard deadline (a closing date, a lender deadline, or a permit meeting), note it in the order form and we'll prioritize accordingly.

At minimum: the property address and your contact information. The intake form also asks about:

• What you already know about your flood zone designation
• Whether you have existing flood insurance (and basic policy details for Level 2+)
• Property characteristics — foundation type, garage, mechanical equipment location
• What you're trying to understand or decide (this shapes the report focus)

The more context you provide, the more targeted the report can be. But you don't need any of it in advance — the form walks you through it step by step. If you have an existing Elevation Certificate or prior flood determination, uploading it is helpful but not required.

No. Formal flood zone determinations for mortgage compliance must be completed by FEMA-certified flood determination companies (CoreLogic, ServiceLink, and similar firms). Lenders use these determinations to establish whether flood insurance is required under the mandatory purchase rule.

A MyFloodReview report is an intelligence product — it tells you what your zone is, what it means, what the history is, and what your options are. It is not a formal determination for lending purposes, and it should not be submitted to a lender in place of a standard flood determination. If you need both, you need both.

Not directly. The only mechanism to remove a mandatory flood insurance requirement from a federally backed mortgage is a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) from FEMA. A LOMA requires a licensed engineer or land surveyor to prepare an Elevation Certificate and submit a formal application to FEMA — a process a report from us supports but does not replace.

What a Comprehensive Review does is assess whether your property appears to meet the eligibility criteria for a LOMA based on publicly available elevation and mapping data, and provide the analysis and referral guidance needed to pursue one. If the assessment indicates a LOMA pathway is viable, that's the starting point for engaging a licensed surveyor.

No. Flood Risk Intelligence™ reports focus on risk analysis, zone history, policy context, and options — not quotes. Insurance quoting is handled through licensed carrier workflows separate from the report process.

Reports at Level 2 and Level 3 do include coverage analysis — reviewing your existing policy for gaps, assessing whether NFIP or private flood insurance is worth evaluating given your zone and property characteristics, and providing the context you need to have an informed conversation with an insurance agent. The analysis informs the decision; the quoting happens separately.

Yes. Commercial tiers are available at $149 (Snapshot), $249 (Analysis), and $399 (Comprehensive). Commercial reports address the same flood zone, mapping, and insurance fundamentals as residential reports but with commercial property context — including higher NFIP building limits ($500,000 vs. $250,000 residential), broader private market considerations, and development and tenant-occupancy implications where relevant.

For multi-site commercial portfolios, contact us directly to discuss a volume arrangement.

All sources are publicly available FEMA records and the property information you provide. Primary sources include:

• FEMA Flood Map Service Center — FIRM panels, panel index, effective dates
• Flood Insurance Study — the technical document behind the FIRM, containing BFE tables, hydraulic methodology, and flood profiles
• FEMA LOMA/LOMR records — the full amendment history for your property address and community
• Community floodplain management records — ordinance history, Community Rating System participation, locally adopted standards
• NFIP program information — current rate guidance, Risk Rating 2.0 methodology documentation
• Property-specific data you provide — existing policy documents, prior determinations, Elevation Certificates if available

We do not use proprietary data, automated lookups, or third-party flood scoring systems as primary sources. The analysis draws directly from the same authoritative federal records that FEMA and engineers use.

Reports are delivered as a formatted PDF by email. The PDF is organized by section — zone determination and context, historical research findings, insurance analysis (Level 2+), regulatory context (Level 3), and findings summary with relevant next steps based on what the research shows.

FIRM panel excerpts, BFE reference data, and relevant amendment records are included as supporting documentation within or alongside the report. If you uploaded an Elevation Certificate or prior policy, relevant data from those documents is incorporated into the analysis.

Yes. All sources used are public records. Reports are frequently ordered by buyers evaluating a property before closing, real estate agents working on behalf of clients, attorneys handling transactions or estate matters, and lenders seeking context beyond a standard flood determination. The property address is the only required identifier.

Comprehensive Review (Level 3) includes a follow-up consultation — the ability to ask clarifying questions about the report findings by email, with a response from the analyst. Level 1 and Level 2 reports can be supplemented with a follow-up consultation add-on if questions arise after delivery.

Questions about what's in the report are handled by email. Questions requiring new research (for example, exploring a different scenario or a second property) would require a new order.

A LOMA pathway assessment in a Comprehensive Review means the publicly available elevation and mapping data suggests your property may meet the criteria for removal from the SFHA. "May meet" is the key phrase — confirming eligibility requires an actual survey.

Next steps:

• Hire a licensed land surveyor in your area to prepare an Elevation Certificate. The EC will document your building's actual elevation relative to the BFE.
• If the EC supports LOMA eligibility (lowest adjacent grade or lowest floor at or above BFE), the surveyor can submit the LOMA application to FEMA — many surveyors handle this as part of their EC service.
• If the EC shows you're below BFE, a LOMA is not available without first elevating the structure. The EC is still useful for insurance rating purposes.

Cost for EC + LOMA application typically runs $600–$2,000 total. Annual flood insurance savings if the LOMA is granted are often $1,000–$4,000 or more, making the investment worthwhile in most cases.

A coverage gap finding typically means one or more of: your building coverage limit is below your replacement cost; you have no contents coverage; your policy excludes coverage that matters for your situation (basement finishing, equipment); or private flood insurance may offer better terms for your situation.

The report will identify the specific nature of the gap. From there:

• Contact your current flood insurance agent to discuss increasing coverage limits or adding contents coverage
• Request quotes from private flood insurers — the private market often offers higher limits and broader coverage, sometimes at competitive or lower cost
• For NFIP policies, review whether the current policy uses the most current Elevation Certificate data for rating

Coverage decisions should be made with a licensed insurance agent who can quote and bind coverage. The report gives you the analysis; the agent gives you the product.

Zone history can be relevant in several ways depending on what changed and when:

• A prior LOMA that was superseded: If a property had a LOMA that a subsequent map revision superseded, it may be eligible to file a new LOMA under the current FIRM — the prior amendment history provides useful elevation data.
• A zone reclassification into higher risk: If the property was moved from X into AE by a recent FIRM revision, the timing matters for insurance — policyholders in this situation may qualify for a Newly Mapped rate when they first purchase flood insurance.
• Historical BFE changes: If the BFE at your property changed in a prior LOMR, understanding what changed and why can inform whether the current BFE is well-supported engineering.

The report should explain which of these applies to your specific zone history finding and what the implications are.

You are not required to carry flood insurance in Zone X if you have a federally backed mortgage. But "not required" and "don't need" are different things.

About 40% of NFIP flood claims come from outside the Special Flood Hazard Area — most of them from Zone X properties. Flood damage is excluded from your homeowners policy regardless of zone. Zone X Shaded (the 500-year floodplain) has meaningful flood probability, just below the mandatory insurance threshold.

Whether flood insurance makes sense in Zone X depends on your risk tolerance, the cost of available coverage, and your property's specific drainage and exposure characteristics. NFIP Preferred Risk Policies are available in Zone X at reduced rates, and many private insurers are competitive for Zone X properties. It is worth pricing — the cost is often lower than people expect.

If your lender requires flood insurance, it's because the property is currently mapped in a Special Flood Hazard Area and you have a federally backed mortgage. That requirement is federal law — a report from us does not override it, and your lender cannot waive it based on a third-party analysis.

The path to removing the requirement is a LOMA from FEMA. Once FEMA issues a LOMA, you provide it to your lender, and the lender must remove the mandatory insurance requirement. That process requires a licensed surveyor and takes time.

In the meantime, if you believe the current zone mapping is incorrect based on your property's actual elevation, that's worth pursuing — but you need to pursue it through the LOMA process, not by declining the lender's requirement.

The "100-year flood" is a misleading term. It does not mean a flood that occurs once per century. It means a flood that has a 1% annual probability — a 1-in-100 chance of occurring in any given year.

Over a 30-year mortgage, a property in the 100-year floodplain has approximately a 26% chance of experiencing a 100-year flood event — more than 1 in 4. Multiple 100-year floods can occur within years or even months of each other (as Houston experienced in 2015, 2016, and 2017). The "100-year" label conveys statistical probability, not a waiting period.

FEMA uses the term "1% annual chance flood" in technical documents for this reason, reserving "100-year flood" for informal communication where the distinction may not matter.

Flood zone boundaries are drawn based on topographic elevation — they reflect the line where ground elevation equals the Base Flood Elevation according to the engineering analysis. They don't follow property lines, streets, or any other human-drawn boundary.

A zone boundary can run through the middle of a lot, along a property line, or anywhere else the elevation contour falls. It is entirely possible for two adjacent lots — or even two structures on the same large lot — to be in different flood zones.

It's also worth noting that the boundaries are based on engineering models with some uncertainty. A structure very close to the boundary in Zone AE may actually be at an elevation above BFE — which is exactly the situation where a LOMA may apply.

There is no fixed schedule. Map updates happen through:

• FEMA-initiated restudy: When FEMA prioritizes a community for updated analysis, typically due to new data (updated LiDAR, new stream gage records) or significant development changes. These can take years from initiation to effective date.
• Community-initiated LOMR: When a community builds flood control infrastructure or corrects a mapping error, it can request a LOMR. These take 6–18 months typically.
• Individual LOMAs: Property-level amendments happen continuously as individual owners file and receive determinations.

Many communities are operating on maps that are 10–20 years old. The effective date of your community's FIRM is on the map panel — and it matters, because older maps used less accurate topographic data. Properties near zone boundaries in older studies are most likely to be incorrectly classified.

Risk Rating 2.0 (implemented October 2021 for new policies, April 2022 for renewals) replaced the prior NFIP rating methodology with a more granular actuarial approach. Properties that were underpriced under the old system — particularly higher-value homes in flood zones — have seen substantial increases. FEMA caps annual increases at 18% for most policyholders, so some properties will see increases for many years before reaching their full actuarial rate.

Options worth evaluating:

• Obtain or update an Elevation Certificate if you don't have one — favorable elevation data may offset some of the increase
• Get private flood insurance quotes — private market pricing is sometimes more favorable than NFIP under Risk Rating 2.0 for specific property types
• Evaluate LOMA eligibility — if the premium increase reflects being in the SFHA and your property is elevated above BFE, a LOMA could eliminate the mandatory requirement entirely
• Review coverage structure — if current coverage is excess of your actual needs or replacement cost, adjusting limits may be appropriate

A flood map revision notice from your lender means FEMA has revised the FIRM for your area and your property has been remapped into a Special Flood Hazard Area. Your lender is required by law to notify you and to require flood insurance going forward.

When you receive this notice:

• Act before the new map effective date if possible: Purchasing flood insurance before the effective date locks in the lower Preferred Risk Policy rate for the first year and allows you to keep that discounted rate structure going forward through a grandfather provision.
• Evaluate LOMA eligibility: If the remapping is recent, it's worth assessing whether your property's actual elevation supports a LOMA. Properties near the boundary of a new SFHA are the most likely LOMA candidates.
• Understand the "Newly Mapped" rate: FEMA offers reduced-cost NFIP policies for properties newly mapped into the SFHA — but only if you purchase the policy in the first year after the map becomes effective.

A map revision notice is one of the most time-sensitive situations a property owner can face. If you've received one, order a report as soon as possible — the options available to you narrow once the new effective date passes.