In case you missed it, Jerry Dunn has written two good homeowner letters about the HOA’s flood insurance that were included in July and August‘s Board packets. Jerry has worked in the insurance industry for years and also serves on his HOA board in Tahoe. Through his service on the Nepenthe Insurance, Legal and Safety Committee (known as ILS), he spent a lot of time researching our insurance and helped us save thousands of dollars on our property insurance. Although Jerry’s personal opinion is that we don’t need flood insurance as the risk is 0.2%, he does believe that the community should vote on this issue and it’s not his nor the Board’s to decide.
Jerry also found that by switching from NFIP to a private carrier, this would save Nepenthe $70,210 or $119 per unit. The Association pays approximately $375,000 per year for NFIP flood insurance. What bothers me personally about this is that the feds pay a 20% commission to the insurance agents which translates to $75,000 per year.
What is interesting is the type of “runaround” or “non-answer” Jerry gets as you can read in his response to the Board’s response. He directly asks for the Board to consider putting flood insurance to vote. I know the community is mixed on this and I myself am okay with whatever is decided, but I question why we didn’t consider the private flood insurance which would have saved each homeowner $119. If we were to get rid of flood insurance, that would reduce our dues by approximately $53 per month. The work on the levy has reduced this risk, so perhaps it’s time that we put this out for vote.
