We have a private flood insurance policy in place on a property, and rather than the exact "mandatory acceptance" clause being included in the written policy itself, it is included in the "special conditions" section of the "Certificate of Property Insurance" document. Is this okay? Or is this clause required to be within the written flood policy document?

There has been discussions about whether or not the "compliance aid" statement needs to be in the policy or can it be on the declaration page. The jury is still out on that and would suggest checking with your specific regulator. Since a "Certificate of Property Insurance" is usually provided by the agent, I would not accept it.

More to the point, is the actual requirement that: "if the following statement is included within the policy or as an endorsement to the policy: ‘‘This policy meets the definition of private flood insurance contained in 42 U.S.C. 4012a(b)(7) and the corresponding regulation.’’

So the question has been raised as to whether a declaration page is actually part of a policy - that is the part that is still out for debate. Maybe the regulators will address it or it can be asked to be addressed when they come out with their proposal on Flood Q&As on Private Policies that is suppose to be forthcoming.

A certificate of insurance is definitely is not a contender in my book.

Thank you, I appreciate the feedback...as this is the first time we've seen this.

I agree that the industry doesn't really seem settled yet as to whether a dec page is part of a policy as the regulators (surprisingly) haven't said anything about it that I've seen related specifically to private flood insurance and the compliance aid statement. That said, FEMA does provide this definition on their website which seems to state that a declaration page is part of the policy:

"Declarations Page. A computer-generated summary of information provided by the prospective policyholder in the application for flood insurance. The declarations page also describes the term of the policy and the limits of coverage and displays the premium and the insurer's name. The declarations page is a part of the flood insurance policy."

This definition of a declarations page can be found here: https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program/definitions

Adam,

Point taken and that may be for a NFIP policy. The question is, does the private insurer see it the same way? It all depends on whether a private insurer is bound to the customer specifically based on anything they put in their declaration page that they issue. That could be up to the insurer or possibly be covered under State insurance laws.

I agree Randy and I've been surprised that the regulators haven't stated whether or not they consider a declarations page to be part of the policy for a private insurer. Hopefully this is included in the upcoming Q&As as clarification would be very helpful in this area.

I can confirm that the declarations page is absolutely a part of the insurance policy; this is standard and uniform across the industry.

- Parts of a policy: Declarations page, Insuring Agreement, Definitions, Exclusions, & Conditions.

- Endorsements may be issued to record alter or amend any or all parts of the policy.