News

  • Recently FEMA revised the format of the Elevation Certificate Form and modified instructions for completion. Effective January, 1, 2007, FEMA Form 81-31 requires surveyors to certify square footage and to provide all building description related items and photographs. FEMA will no longer accept existing copies of the old form.

  • When a community adopts new flood maps, Elevation Certificates and Letters of Map Amendments for individual lots may no longer be valid. Subsequently, property owners may find that their building has been designated in a high-risk flood zone, which mandates the purchase of flood insurance if they hold a mortgage on the property; or, they may find that their building has been designated in a low-risk flood zone, which may reduce or eliminate the cost of flood insurance. In either situation, the property owner will need a new Elevation Certificate. Check with your community’s floodplain manager for any flood map updates, or, call us, Premier Elevation Certificate Network, Inc. at
    561-253-9010.

  • Acronyms We Use
    SFHA: Special Flood Hazard Areas
    FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency
    NFIP: National Flood Insurance Program
    LOMA: Letter of Map Amendment
    FIRM: Flood Insurance Rate Map
    BFE: Base Flood Elevation
SERVICES

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 and condominium associations.

About 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.

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