Flood losses are excluded under traditional homeowners and renters insurance policies. But private market options, in addition to policies administered by FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), give property owners peace of mind when a flood event occurs. One advantage of obtaining private flood insurance is that insurers typically offer higher coverage limits than the NFIP, AM Best reported. And thanks to advances in technology and in weather and property data, private insurers can write flood risks more accurately. But a significant protection gap remains despite improvements in the private flood market, according to the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I). The "Flood: Beyond Risk Transfer" paper produced by the Triple-I in April 2021 indicates the current approach to flood risk is "insufficient and unsustainable." It follows that only 30% of homes in high-risk flood areas of the U.S. carry flood insurance, according to the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "The insurance industry can help by working with governments to promote improve­ments in zoning, land use, and building codes," the Triple-I says on its website. "Some new approaches would be to increase the use of parametric insurance, which covers risks without sending adjusters to assess damage after an event and pays out if certain agreed-upon conditions are met, or microinsurance, which could provide low-cost insurance to individuals generally not covered by traditional insur­ance or government programs." The Triple-I assembled a list of the top 10 writers of private flood insurance based on direct written premiums in 2020 using data from the NAIC and S&P Global Market Intelligence. Check out the slideshow above to discover those companies. Related: |

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