Majority of Flooded Texas Homeowners Lack Insurance Support

Two weeks after catastrophic floods swept through parts of Texas, hundreds of residents are struggling to clean up and rebuild, often without the financial safety net of flood insurance.

According to Kut News, Texas leads the nation in uninsured flood risk. Only 7% of homeowners in the state are covered by the federal government’s flood insurance program, with coverage dropping to 2% in hard-hit inland areas like Travis and Kerr counties. The number of active policies is declining, with 39,000 Texans canceling or allowing their policies to lapse in the past year. Experts blame a mix of high costs, lack of awareness, and what some call “catastrophe amnesia.”

For homeowners like Yolanda Chavira, who lives just outside Leander, the lack of coverage has left them without options. Her home, not located in a designated flood zone, was inundated by creek water on July 5. She didn’t have flood insurance because it was too expensive. Now, the first floor is waterlogged and moldy. “It stinks in there. I can’t breathe,” Chavira told Kut News. The median cost of flood insurance in Texas in 2023 was $779 a year.

While FEMA assistance is available, it’s often insufficient. The maximum individual grant is $87,200, but the average payout is far lower, just $4,200 nationally between 2016 and 2018. In high-cost areas, that barely makes a dent. Homeowners can apply for low-interest loans, but many may be unable to repay them. Flood insurance policies also have caps, with most covering up to $250,000, often not enough to fully rebuild.

“If you don’t have flood insurance and your house or anything in it is damaged by a flood, your homeowner’s insurance will not cover it,” said Maddie Sloan, director of the Disaster Recovery and Fair Housing Project at the nonprofit Texas Appleseed. “You have to have flood insurance.”

Gov. Greg Abbott has called a special legislative session to address the crisis, including a proposal for a new flood relief fund. But questions remain about how much aid will reach individual homeowners. For now, many like Chavira are living in temporary shelters or unsafe homes, uncertain when, or if, they’ll be able to return to normal life.