What will you do if your home is damaged in the storm? Are you properly insured?

There is a great deal of confusion in regard to hurricane, homeowners, and flood insurance, and what they each cover.

Hurricane insurance covers wind damage, not flooding.

Once winds drop below 74 mph, as Olivia has and is currently a tropical storm, any wind damage would most likely be covered under homeowners insurance.

But according to Gordon Ito, state insurance commissioner, it is important that people also have flood insurance.

“In case of flooding, like if the stream overflowed or in Hawaii, we have a lot of mountains and there’s heavy rain and the water flows down in the hill and goes into your home, that’s flood insurance. It’s not covered under homeowners or hurricane typically,” Ito said.

“Many people think that because they’re not in a flood zone and their vendor doesn’t require flood insurance that they don’t need flood insurance, but as the flood insurance program says, most flooding often occurs outside of a flood zone, so people should consider that as an additional coverage and purchase it,” he continued.

People should also be aware that no fault car insurance does not protect your car from flood or storm damage, only comprehensive car insurance does.

Consumers should also be aware that there may be a moratorium on making changes to and purchasing hurricane insurance and flood insurance.

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