My experience has been that very few agents actually know what the requirements are for flood insurance.
Ditto that. In fairness, some blame my rest with your customer who probably didn't inform the agent (and almost certainly didn't know to inform the agent) that flood insurance was being required by his or her lender and to request a waiver the 30 day waiting period. But shame on the agent for not asking.
But geez, you'd figure any agent would be anxious to waive the waiting period which would mean the policy would expire 30 days sooner and they'd get paid for the next renewal 30 days sooner. So much for self interest.