More than 5,000 homes in southeastern Virginia have received multiple federal payouts for flood damage over the life of the National Flood Insurance Program, according to new analysis by the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the program, recently made data on what are called “repetitive loss properties” available for the first time, said Anna Weber, a senior policy analyst with the NRDC.
“Historically, it's been very difficult to get access to specific data about repeatedly flooded properties,” she said. “FEMA has held a very tight hand on this data.”
Repetitive loss properties refer to those that have received substantial amounts of damage — and assistance — twice or more within a 10-year period.
They represent a small percentage of the total policies under the federal flood insurance program, but account for a large chunk of the money FEMA pays out, Weber said.
A majority, about 74%, of Virginia’s repetitive loss properties are in Hampton Roads, according to NRDC’s analysis.
Hampton, Norfolk and Poquoson have the most, but every locality in the region has homes that repeatedly flooded.
In total, southeastern Virginia has more homes with multiple flood payouts than New York City.
About 12% of those are considered “severe repetitive losses.” That means they have filed four or more separate claims, receiving at least $5,000 each time.
One house in Virginia Beach flooded 52 times, including four floods in 2020 and another two the following year, the Washington Post reported.
The numbers only reveal properties that had federal flood insurance policies and filed claims – a drastic undercount of the amount that have actually flooded, Weber said.
“In some ways, getting on this list means that you're lucky, because in order to be named a repetitive loss property, you have to have flood insurance,” she said. “Many people, even people who live in really flood-prone communities, don't have flood insurance because they don't know that they need to have it or just can't afford it.”
The federal government launched the National Flood Insurance Program in 1968 after the private insurance sector had “essentially pulled out of flood risk and decided that they weren’t able to cover it,” Weber said.
“So the federal government stepped in.”
In areas that FEMA deems particularly high risk for floods, called Special Flood Hazard Areas, people with federally backed mortgages are required to purchase flood insurance.
For the most part everywhere else, policies are voluntary. Weber said the program tends to see an uptick in people buying insurance after storms. Then they decrease “as the memory of a major event kind of tails off in people's memories.”
About 71,000 Hampton Roads homes had flood insurance as of last year.
Climate change is now quickly reshaping the bounds of risk. Hurricane Helene just devastated the mountains of western North Carolina for example, far from the coast, dropping more than two feet of rain over three days in some places.
FEMA flood zones struggle to keep up with the increasing breadth of that risk. Some areas’ flood maps haven’t been updated in decades, though the way the agency calculates homes’ individual risk got an overhaul in recent years.
“At the end of the day, the best flood insurance policy in the world is not going to prevent your house from flooding,” Weber said. “We need to be attacking both sides of the problem. It is really important that people understand the need and the benefits of having flood insurance and have the ability to access and pay for it, but on the other hand, it's critically important to be reducing risk so that people don't have to deal with the effects of flooding in the first place.”
FEMA offers some assistance to homeowners to do work that will protect it from future flood damage, such as raising the home or raising electrical equipment.
But Weber said only a small percentage of repetitive loss properties have ever received mitigation assistance – in Virginia, only 8% of them.
At the end of the day, American taxpayers are on the hook for rebuilding these homes, Weber said.
“This is something that even if you don't live in a flood-prone neighborhood, it is worthwhile coming to an understanding about, because at the end of the day, this is something that affects all of us.”
The NRDC advocates for strengthening states’ flood disclosure laws to better inform prospective buyers about their risk when purchasing or renting a home.
In Virginia, for example, sellers don’t have to reveal a home’s risk or history of flooding unless it falls into the repetitive loss category. (The General Assembly postponed a bill earlier this year that would boost flood risk disclosure in real estate.)
