Flood Insurance Rate Map Background Information

Floods are the most common and widespread of all natural disasters--except fire. Most communities in the United States can experience some kind of flooding after spring rains, heavy thunderstorms, or winter snow thaws. Floods can be slow, or fast rising but generally develop over a period of days. Flooding has caused the deaths of more than 10,000 people since 1900. Property damage from flooding now totals over $1 billion each year in the United States. Also significantly, nearly 9 of every 10 presidential disaster declarations result from natural phenomena in which flooding was a major component.

In response to increasing losses from flood hazards nationwide, the Congress of the United States passed the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 which established the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The 1968 Act provided for the availability of flood insurance within communities that were willing to adopt floodplain management programs to mitigate future flood losses. The act also required the identification of all floodplain areas within the United States and the establishment of flood-risk zones within those areas. As a result of the 1972 Hurricane Agnes flooding along the East coast, the 1968 Act was expanded by the Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973. The 1973 Act added the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement and increased the awareness of floodplain mapping needs throughout the country. The responsibility for administration of the NFIP falls with the Federal Insurance Administration of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The risk data to identify floodplain areas, as required by the Act, are acquired through Flood Insurance Studies (FISs). FISs are hydrologic and hydraulic studies of flood risks developed by FEMA. Using the results of a FIS, FEMA prepares a Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) that depicts the spatial extent of Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs) and other thematic features related to flood risk assessment. SFHAs are areas subject to inundation by a flood having a one-percent or greater probability of being equaled or exceeded during any given year. This flood, which is referred to as the 1% annual chance flood (or base flood), is the national standard on which the floodplain management and insurance requirements of the NFIP are based.

FEMA publishes the FIRM and distributes it to a wide range of users: private citizens, community officials, insurance agents and brokers, lending institutions, and other Federal agencies. The FIRM is the basis for floodplain management, mitigation, and insurance activities of the NFIP. Uses of the FIRM for insurance activities include enforcement of the mandatory purchase requirement of the 1973 Act, which ". . . requires the purchase of flood insurance by property owners who are being assisted by Federal programs or by Federally supervised, regulated, or insured agencies or institutions in the acquisition or improvement of land or facilities located or to be located in identified areas having special flood hazards" (Section 2(b)(4) of the 1973 Act). In addition to the identification of SFHAs, the risk zones shown on the FIRMs are the basis for the establishment of premium rates for flood coverage offered through the NFIP.

At present, FISs have been completed and FIRMs published for virtually all communities in the nation having flood risks. Flood risks have been assessed in approximately 20,400 communities nationwide. These studies, conducted at a cost of over $900 million, have resulted in the publication of over 80,000 individual FIRM panels. Typically, 6 to 8 million FIRMs are distributed to users each year by FEMA. Over 2.5 million flood insurance policies have been written through the NFIP, providing coverage against flood loss for over $200 billion in property nationwide.

In addition to initial FISs, FEMA is responsible for maintaining the FIRMs as communities grow, as new or better scientific and technical data concerning flood risks becomes available, and as some FISs become outdated by the construction of flood control projects or the urbanization of rural watersheds. Several thousand FIRMs need to be updated per year.

ABAG, the Association of Bay Area Governments, is the regional planning and services agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

This page was last updated 8/21/03 by jbp.