If you don't already have flood insurance, consider purchasing it for the structure and its contents.Most homeowner's insurance policies do not cover damage from floods, so check your policy!The Village of Bensenville participates in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP,) allowing any property owner or renter to purchase flood insurance. The SFHA is more commonly known as the 1% annual chance flood or "100-year flood."

If you are building inside a flood plain, the purchase of flood insurance is mandatory if using a federally regulated/insured bank for a loan. Even if your home or business is not in a flood plain, purchasing flood insurance may be a good idea. Approximately 25% of all claims paid out by NFIP are for properties not in the SFHA.

Flood Insurance was never required on my property until now...why?
There are a number of different possible answers to this question:

• The previous owner could have purchased the land without having a lender involved. Only lenders are required to enforce participation in the National Flood Insurance Program; there is no public law requiring such participation. Therefore, people who purchase flood insurance do so either for their own protection or due to the requirement of their mortgage holder.
  
• The property may have been purchased before the flood maps and requirements concerning flood insurance were either in place or being enforced.
  
• The flood maps in a given area may have been recently revised. This works both ways in those areas which were previously not located in a special hazard area may now be, or better yet, areas that had been categorized in a hazard zone may now be clear.