In most cases when you attempt to finance a home you will find out fairly quickly whether it is in a flood zone or not. The latter requires no additional insurance.
This is pretty straight forward and 99% of the time, the determination is accurate. However, there are rare times when a property may have been reclassified since it was built, now putting into a flood zone.
When purchasing this type of property be prepared that the company insuring for flood, may request for an elevation certificate so they are able to determine the risk. If there is not one on the property the expense to get one could range between 500-800 dollars.
If you chose to finance the home before this is done, insurance for flood could be thousands of dollars, until you get that elevation certificate.
It is also important to understand that just because you're told that your property is in a flood zone, doesn't mean that your house is.
Example:
Very recently a couple purchased a HUD owned property, that was found to be in a flood zone now, but wasn't when it was built in 2004(property was reclassified at a later date).
By having them get the original survey, it clearly showed that 4 feet of the land at the rear of the property was in a 100 year flood zone and the home itself was not.
By submitting this information to the flood service company which makes the report on Fema form 81-93 the requirement for flood insurance was lifted, saving the borrowers not only money, but the time and hassle of getting an elevation certificate.
Checking into this will not always result in such a positive outcome, however, making the effort to see if your home itself might not be in a flood area is well worth the possible reward.
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