Don’t Wait for the Forecast to Buy Flood Insurance

Jerel Johnson Insurance

If you’ve been outside in Utah or Arizona lately, you’ve probably noticed it has been a wet fall. Not the nice, good-for-the-lawn kind of wet. The kind that sends water down roads and washes where it doesn’t usually go.

I want to walk through what’s been happening, what’s likely coming this winter, and the one thing about flood insurance that catches almost everybody off guard.

WHAT’S ALREADY HAPPENED

October storms tied to El Niño brought flash flooding to parts of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. The San Juan River at Shiprock, New Mexico crested at its highest level since 1935. Pagosa Springs, Colorado declared a local emergency after flooding on October 23.

Then came the Halloween storm. It soaked Southern California, moved into the Four Corners on Sunday, and dropped somewhere between 2 and 6 inches of rain on parts of Arizona. That’s a lot of water for a desert state in a couple of days.

It’s worth noting that this wasn’t a hurricane year. The Atlantic had one of its quietest seasons in decades, and flooding still showed up all over the country. Flood doesn’t need a named storm.

WHAT NOAA IS SAYING ABOUT THIS WINTER

The Climate Prediction Center expects a strong to very strong El Niño to hang around into early 2027. For the Southwest, NOAA’s winter outlook leans wetter than normal, and drought is expected to ease or end by late January. For Arizona especially, that sounds like good news, and in a lot of ways it is.

But NOAA also made a point of saying that heavy rain on dry, hard ground is a recipe for flash floods and mudslides. Dry soil doesn’t soak up water the way people think it does. Add burn scars and desert washes, and the water has nowhere to go but downhill.

For Utah and Nevada the picture is less clear. NOAA shows roughly equal odds of a wetter or drier winter for most of the Intermountain West. I’m not going to pretend a forecast like that tells us what your street will look like in January. It doesn’t. That’s kind of the point.

THE WAITING PERIOD IS THE PART PEOPLE MISS

Flood insurance doesn’t start the minute you buy it. There’s a waiting period before coverage takes effect. The private flood carrier I work with, Neptune, has a 10-day wait. The federal flood program generally runs 30 days.

So if the radar is already lit up and you decide that’s the moment to call, you’re too late for that storm. You can’t buy a policy after the water is coming and have it respond to that event. The time to buy is when the sky is blue and it feels like a waste of money.

I know that’s a tough sell. Nobody enjoys paying for something they hope they never use. But a few inches of water in a home can mean tens of thousands of dollars in damage, and that comes out of your pocket if you don’t have coverage.

ONE MORE THING: EL NIÑO AND EARTHQUAKES

I get asked this more than you’d think, so I’ll say it plainly. El Niño has nothing to do with earthquake risk. Flood and earthquake are two separate coverages, written on separate policies, and a homeowners policy excludes both. If you’re in Utah, the Wasatch Front is a real earthquake risk no matter what the weather does. I can quote both side by side if you want to see what each one looks like.

WHAT I’D DO THIS WEEK

If you passed on flood coverage this summer because it seemed like a quiet year, now is a good time to take another look. Reach out and I’ll check your property, run a quote, and tell you honestly whether it makes sense for your situation. If it doesn’t, I’ll say so.

This post is general information, not a quote or a guarantee of coverage. Coverage, waiting periods, and eligibility depend on the carrier, the property, and the policy terms.

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No pressure. No obligation. Just an honest look at your options before the next storm.

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