Your Home Insurance Won't Pay for a Flood or an Earthquake (And Most People Don't Know).

Earthquake insurance near the New Madrid fault fell from 60.2% of homes in 2000 to 10.4% in 2024, and on one North Carolina street after Hurricane Helene, 24 houses flooded and one family was insured. Here's how a line on a map ends up deciding who is covered.

In Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, fewer than 1 in 100 homes carried federal flood insurance when Helene hit in September 2024. FEMA's flood map put about 2,100 properties in its high-risk zone; First Street's independent model puts about 19,500 at similar risk. Standard homeowners policies exclude both flood and earthquake damage, and FEMA disaster aid is capped and was never meant to rebuild a house.

On today's breakdown: what the 100-year flood really means (a 1% chance every year, about 1 in 4 over a 30-year mortgage), why FEMA's own records put about three in ten flood claims from 2014 to 2024 outside its high-risk zones, and what a 2017 federal audit found about how current the maps are. Then the earthquake side: Missouri's insurance regulator on rising costs and insurers pulling back, California at about 12.5% of residential policies, Washington at about 11% of homeowners and Oregon near 15%, against a USGS hazard model showing nearly 75% of the country could see damaging shaking.