They Say, Hearsay
We live in South Florida. Hurricane Wilma was a Category 2 storm when it hit here and we didn't have any flooding, so that type of storm is clearly not much of a threat. It bugs me that we have to pay for something that might happen in the future, and we don't get our money back when it doesn't. I want to drop my flood insurance and can't think why I should keep paying for it if my neighborhood has never been flooded.

We Say
Experience is not always the best teacher. It may come in handy if the second lesson closely mirrors the first, but life (and Mother Nature) seldom works that way. One's hurricane experience can actually have limited value—or worse, it can make one complacent and over confident. A "been there, done that, got the T-shirt" mindset is compounded as time puts more distance between storm experiences, causing people to forget what prompted them to purchase optional coverage such as flood insurance in the first place. They may need some stark reminders.

More people in the U.S. have been killed by storm surge-induced flooding in hurricanes than all other hurricane-related threats combined since 1900, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  And yet, every major flood brings stories about people who let their flood insurance policy expire or never believed they needed the coverage. People simply do not understand flood risk, as evidenced by a newspaper headline about the devastating floods this spring in South Dakota. It read: "In the Flood Zone, but Astonished by High Water." The trouble with facts, such as knowing you live in a flood zone, is that ignoring them has consequences.