Originally Posted By: Arney
<snip> many of the communities struck with historic floods typically do not have flood insurance, which is going to make recovery more difficult for these people.<snip>

Flood insurance is cheap. Get it whether your mortgage company requires it or not or whether you are technically in a flood zone or not. Then step back after an event and let the windstorm insurance company and the flood insurer (feds?) fight about who pays for it instead of having each of them hammer you with exclusionary clauses.

Seriously, insurance is complicated. If the water damage is "wind blown" then the windstorm coverage kicks in. If the water damage is "percolating", then its excluded from the windstorm coverage and you have to look to a flood policy. If you have both, then you let them fight it out as to how the water damage occured. One of them is responsible.