Should Tennesseans get flood insurance amid hurricane season?
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., (WATE) — It has been a little over eight months since remnants of Hurricane Helene devastated parts of East Tennessee, and now hurricane season is back until November.
The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance is urging people to be prepared. They suggest having a plan in place if severe weather were to hit your area, and stress the importance of protecting your home with flood insurance.
Between hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes, Josh Witt with The Insurance Group said now is a good time look into protecting your home.
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'Especially as weather patterns are changing, we're starting to see like Tornado Alley used to be through Oklahoma and Texas, It's shifted almost actually in Middle Tennessee, Middle and West Tennessee,' said Witt. 'So as weather patterns shift, rain starts happening more. We saw with Hurricane Helene, that was all flood insurance and it's just not covered by homeowner's policy.'
He said both flood and earthquake insurance is not covered by general home insurance but nearly everyone in Knoxville and the greater East Tennessee area should have it.
'There are tons of floodplains around Knoxville, obviously, with all the lakes and rivers that we have. And one of the one of the big misconceptions is just because I'm not in a floodplain doesn't that doesn't mean you don't need flood insurance. As a matter of fact, 40% of flood claims actually occur outside of high-risk floodplains,' said Witt.
He said if you live in a floodplain, you're probably already paying for flood insurance as part of your mortgage. If you're not, it could pay off to invest in your home.
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'Your average subdivision, it can happen. The people who went through, unfortunately, Hurricane Helene, they were not in floodplains for the most part,' said Witt. 'That ended up being quite the problem for them, and there'll be some disaster recovery that can help, but there's no substitute for actual flood insurance.'
While the probability of your home being impacted by natural disasters are low, he said it is important to have.
'If you don't have flood insurance, or you don't have earthquake insurance, sinkhole is another big coverage in East Tennessee that if you don't have it, you need to add it,' said Witt. 'Most of the time, it's not expensive. Nobody wants to look at it. I get it, we all want to keep costs down. But you don't want to be sitting in the situation of not having that coverage when you actually need it.'
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Witt added If you do plan to buy flood insurance sometime soon, most plans do not kick in for up to 30 days after buying it, unless you are currently in the process of buying a home.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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