Flood Insurance Check
A new flood policy starts 30 days after you buy it
Federal flood policies here carry a 25% Community Rating System discount.
New policies can be written until December 11, 2026, unless Congress extends the program again.
When a new flood policy would start, what it would pay on your own figures, and whether the county's 50 percent rule catches a repair or renovation.
When would a new policy start?
Opens on today. Change it to see another day.
A new flood policy does not cover you on the day you buy it. Cover begins at 12:01 a.m. on the 30th day after the application and the payment are both in. Adding cover or raising a limit waits the same 30 days.
By law, no new federal flood policy can be written after a date Congress sets. Congress has been extending it in short steps, and the current date is December 11, 2026. Applying before that date is the safe course.
When the 30 days are shorter
- If you are taking out or renewing a mortgage, cover starts at the closing, provided the flood policy is applied for and paid for on or before closing day.
- For 13 months after a new flood map takes effect in a community, cover starts the day after you apply and pay.
Would a flood policy pay for the damage?
The building only: leave out the land, your belongings, and the footings, piers and pipes that sit below ground. A local builder or your insurance agent can give you a figure. It is not what the house would sell for.
From the declarations page. The most a single-family home can carry is $250,000.
Also on the declarations page.
The whole repair bill, before the deductible.
An adjuster’s “actual cash value” for the damaged part. If you do not have one, leave it empty and the page shows the least the policy would pay.
The policy would pay
Fill in the first four figures and the repair cost to see an amount.
This is the building only. Belongings are covered only if you bought contents coverage, up to $100,000, and are always paid at what they were worth after age and wear.
A federal flood policy pays a house in one of two ways, and which one depends on how much you insure it for. Insured for at least 80% of the cost to rebuild (or for the federal maximum), a main home is paid at replacement cost, up to the limit on the policy. Insured for less, the policy pays what the damaged parts were worth after age and wear, or a share of the repair bill, whichever is more. Enter your own figures.
This follows the federal policy wording. The insurer’s adjuster does the actual settlement, so use it to know what to expect and what to ask.
Does the county’s 50% rule apply to my project?
The county estimates the market value of the building itself, not the land, or asks you for an appraisal by a qualified independent appraiser. For damage it uses the value before the damage happened. Use your best estimate here.
Everything it would cost to do the work, priced as a contractor would price it. The county’s floodplain office decides what counts.
The county would probably treat this as
Enter the building’s value and the cost of the work to see where it falls.
The county’s floodplain office makes the actual determination, from its own estimate of the building’s value or an appraisal you provide.
In a mapped flood zone, a renovation or a repair that costs a large share of the building’s value brings the whole building under today’s flood rules. Enter the work and its cost to see which side of the line it sits.
The rule applies to buildings in a mapped Special Flood Hazard Area (zones A, AE, AH, AO and VE). Outside one, ordinary permit rules apply. The Flood Zone Check on this site shows which zone an address is in.
The county’s definition leaves out
- Work needed to correct existing health, sanitary or safety code violations that the building official has identified, and that is the minimum necessary to make the home safe to live in.
- Historic buildings that qualify for the Florida Building Code's historic-building exception. A variance, approved by the county's Cultural Resources Review Board and the Floodplain Administrator, can be issued for work on one.
Most of this neighbourhood was laid out in the early 1950s, years before the first federal flood maps, so a house here was often built before any flood rule applied to it. The county's flood office and a flood insurance agent can answer these three questions for your own house.
Local rules and help
- Community Rating System class
- 5
- Discount on federal flood policies
- 25%
- In effect for policies on or after
- April 1, 2023
The discount is applied automatically and should be shown on the declarations page of a federal flood policy. If you cannot find it there, ask whoever sold you the policy.
Free from the floodplain office
A letter showing your flood zone, now and when the house was built
The office writes a flood zone determination letter, and a historical one showing the zone your house was built in, to help an insurer rate your policy correctly. There is no fee and the county says the turnaround is three business days or less. The request is a one-page Multi-Use Application, linked from the floodplain page below.
Elevation certificates on file
The office reviews and keeps the elevation certificates it receives. If one was ever made for your house, ask for a copy.
Is this work "substantial"?
The office makes the substantial improvement and substantial damage determinations for any project that needs a permit in a flood zone.
Help paying to raise a house
The county has applied for federal money toward individual projects such as raising a house. It says taking part can reduce the damage a flood does to a property and may lower the flood insurance premium. The county's floodplain page names a contact for grant questions.
Grant questions: Zach Gibbons, Quality Engineering & Surveying, LLC
- Phone
- 337-256-7763
- grants@qesla.com
Floodplain Management
St. Johns County Floodplain Management
- Phone
- (904) 827-6800
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 7:30 am to 4:30 pm. After the greeting, press option 6.
- Website
- sjcfl.us
The rules themselves
- The county's flood facts pageFlood insurance, the Community Rating System discount and local flood hazards, in the county's words.
- The county's flood zone viewerSearch an address or a parcel for its flood zone.
- The county’s definition of a substantial improvement
- The law that sets the date new policies must be bought byPublic Law 119-103, section 139
- Federal flood insurance regulations (44 CFR part 61)Coverage limits, the 30-day wait, and the policy wording the loss rules come from.
- FloodSmart.govFEMA’s own flood insurance site: find an insurance agent, and check whether the program is open for new policies.
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