A law passed in 1984 turned regulation of the Jordan River over to water managers. At the same time, it took them off the hook if the river flooded homes around the banks.
Flood insurance policies usually are designed to cover the floor where the water enters. If your basement gets flooded, you need to make sure you’ve got natural catastrophe insurance.
What Standard Home Insurance Policies Leave Out in UT
Your homeowners policy covers things like fire and damage from hail. Damage from floods and earthquakes isn’t in there.
You can buy flood insurance from a private carrier or through the National Flood Insurance Program. You can add earthquake coverage to your existing policy or have it written as its own policy. Some insurance companies don’t write these policies at all, so you could end up buying it somewhere else.
Wet Ground Gets You Twice
The City of Bluffdale advises homeowners to check their sump pumps every spring because groundwater sits high if you live around the river.
And when the earth starts shaking, wet soil can lose its strength and act more like a liquid than solid ground. That’s what causes houses to settle and foundations to crack.
The Waiting Periods Can Break You
Flood insurance bought through the NFIP has a 30-day waiting period. And most earthquake coverage policies run somewhere between 10 and 30 days.
You can’t buy natural catastrophe insurance when the ground has already started moving. At United Insurance Services, we’ll take the time to go over these dates carefully with you before spring runoff.
Start with Where Your House Sits
Your home may not be near the river in Bluffdale. But soil changes too. You can take two houses a mile apart in UT and have two completely different answers. And the maps that show flood zones and those that show ground conditions are entirely different maps.
Get in touch with United Insurance Services today to go over your natural catastrophe insurance options before a catastrophe happens.
