Premier Elevation Certificate Network, Inc. understands your need for professional, reliable and compliant documentation to determine appropriate flood coverage and to protect your real estate assets. Our "eight-point" quality control standard ensures elevation certificates are prepared in accordance with FEMA rules and regulations to prevent errors and the resulting policy mis-rating and liability.
Premier Elevation Certificate Network, Inc. provides services to insurance agents and brokers, commercial property owners, condominium associations and homeowners.
Premier Elevation Certificate Network, Inc. coordinates the preparation of the following products:
Elevation Certificates
The elevation certificate is an important administrative tool for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and an important risk management tool for property owners with buildings currently classified within FEMA-designated Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHA). It is used to provide elevation, building type, flood map and additional information necessary to determine the proper flood insurance premium rates, to support a request for a Letter Of Map Amendment (LOMA) or Letter Of Map Revision (LOMR), and to ensure compliance with community floodplain management ordinances.
The elevation certificate is required in order to properly rate post-FIRM buildings, which are buildings constructed after the publication of the first Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) in a particular community, for flood insurance zones A1-A30, AE, AH, A (with BFE), VE, V1-V30, V (with BFE), AR, AR/A, AR/AE, AR/A1-A30, AR/AH, and AR/AO. The elevation certificate is not required to buy flood coverage for pre-FIRM buildings unless the property owner or insurance agent wants to rate the buildings under the post-FIRM flood insurance rules to determine if the premium rate would be lower.
The elevation certificate must be signed and sealed by a land surveyor, engineer or architect authorized by law to certify such information. Most elevation certificates are prepared by surveyors licensed by the states in which the subject properties are located.
V-Zone Risk Factor Rating Forms
Flood zones VE, V1-V30, V (with BFE), also referred to by FEMA as coastal high hazard zones, are SFHA with increased flood risk resulting from their close proximity to large bodies of water. These coastal SFHA have special building code requirements that mandate construction techniques that are more complicated than building codes for inland SFHA. To complicate the rating process further, coastal areas have different physical attributes, such as sand dunes, sea walls and other physical characteristics, which influence insurance rates. These issues make rating the policies more complicated than inland SFHA policies. Property owners can elect to have coastal engineers perform special analyses on the buildings and prepare various supplemental information forms providing detailed information about the construction methods used to mitigate flood risk and the special physical attributes of the particular location.
Premier Elevation Certificate Network, Inc. coordinates these special analyses with coastal engineers throughout the coastal areas of the United States where these coastal SFHA exist. The objective is to help property owners and insurance agents obtain specialized flood risk data the agents and flood insurance companies need to correctly rate the buildings in order to calculate actuarially sound flood insurance premiums. While not required by FEMA, often completing these forms reduces the premiums by enabling the underwriter to more thoroughly understand the risk of the buildings and particular location.