Federal Flood Insurance Premiums In Massachusetts To Drop 15 Percent

MARSHFIELD -- Marshfield residents who buy federal flood insurance should see a 15 percent decrease in their premiums in October after the town improved its flood rating.

The 15 percent discount for Marshfield residents should mean $300,000 in savings for property owners in the town, Massachusetts Coastal Coalition Chairman Joe Rossi said.

Want news like this sent straight to your inbox? Head over to PatriotLedger.com to sign up for alerts and make sure you never miss a thing. You pick the news you want, we deliver.Rossi is also the chairman of Marshfield's Community Rating System/Program for Public Information, tasked with keeping up the town's flood rating with the National Flood Insurance Program.

Marshfield decreased its rating from class 9 to class 7, joining Scituate, Quincy and Hull. The discount Marshfield residents had been receiving for the lesser rating was 5 percent, he said.

"Level 10 is the lowest, with no discount," Rossi said. "Level 1, there's only one of those in the country, and they get a 45 percent discount."

Rossi said the improved flood rating is a "big deal."

The town's program was audited in November and received official notice of the improved rating on Friday.

Three components led to the town's improved rating: verification that vacant land in the highest risk flood zones will not be built on, the implementation of a public information plan and building code enforcement and compliance, he said.

Rossi helped establish the Community Rating System Committee in 2018, which developed and published the 35-page public information plan. Marshfield became one of only four communities in New England and New York to establish a committee to specifically write and implement a public information plan.

The plan dictates how often mailings go out, meetings are scheduled and how residents are reached and educated about flood risk, flood zones and flood insurance.

"Not only are we saving people money on their insurance, we're also reducing the risk as well," Rossi said.

The spread of the coronavirus has upended some of the committee's original plans for outreach because in-person gatherings are too risky to hold. Mailings, recorded messages and other communications will still go out. One audience Rossi said he wants to target is tourists, to explain how dangerous flooding can be during storms.

Rossi said he hopes Marshfield's committee approach will be adopted by other South Shore communities.

One of Rossi's projects to increase the rating was to get agreements from owners of land in the highest risk flood zones to say they will not build in them. Most of land is owned by the town or conversation groups.

"I credit these nonprofits and the town for preserving the open space and giving us the letters," he said. "They helped us get there. We could not count open space if we didn't have a letter for it."

Out of the 2,800 acres of vacant land in the high-risk flood zone, Rossi only missed about 20 acres, owned by individuals.

"We got credit for almost all of our open space," he said.

Undeveloped land acts as a buffer and reservoir during floods, he said.

Reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite can be reached at wcowperthwaite@patriotledger.com.

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