Neptune Flood Announces Results of the 2022 Neptune Consumer Survey of Flood Awareness

Largest private flood insurance company partners with the University of South Florida Customer Experience Lab – St. Petersburg for third consecutive year to gather consumer perceptions and attitudes towards flood insurance

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Dec. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Neptune Flood, the largest private flood insurance company, today announced the results of its third annual Neptune Consumer Survey of Flood Awareness, conducted in partnership with the University of South Florida Customer Experience Lab – St. Petersburg.

Now in its third year, the survey utilizes a base set of questions to view trends in consumer views. Three new questions were added this year to measure how flood risk affects the decision of home purchases.

Key findings include:

• 75% of homeowners believe they have flood insurance when nationwide the true number is less than 5%
• 85% of homebuyers think that flood risk is an important factor in a home purchase decision
• 65% believe that flood risk is higher now than it was in the past
• Older respondents believed they were at a lower risk of flooding in the next five years than younger respondents
• 19% of homeowners erroneously don't think they are in a flood zone and a further 17% don't know their flood zone.

These and other findings highlight the continued need for education about flood risk and flood insurance, which in the United States is generally not included as part of a homeowners insurance policy and must be purchased separately either from the NFIP or from a private provider such as Neptune.

University of South Florida Professor Dr. Philip Trocchia, who designed and conducted the 2022 Neptune/USF study of flood risk awareness said, "The data indicate that consumers recognize the risk of flooding and revealed that the overwhelming majority (85%) of consumers characterize flood risk to be an important factor in their home purchase decisions. Further, nearly 2/3 of respondents felt that their homes are at greater risk of incurring flood damage in coming years than they had in the past." 

"Now in its third year, the survey continues to show that consumers are aware of flood risk but have a hard time understanding how to protect themselves from that risk," said Trevor Burgess, CEO of Neptune Flood. "Hurricane Ian, which is projected to be the second-costliest US flood event on record, further highlighted the need to make sure homeowners know how to measure and insure flood risk. These results help us understand where Neptune, and the industry as a whole, needs to focus our efforts in educating home and business owners of the tens of millions of buildings at risk for flooding that are not insured. We thank Dr. Trocchia and the University of South Florida for their continued involvement."

The survey was designed and conducted by the University of South Florida Customer Experience Lab – St. Petersburg. Utilizing Qualtrics to construct the questionnaire, Amazon MTurk as the survey tool, and IBM SPSS analytics for evaluation of the results, the survey comprises qualified responses from 1,048 respondents across 40 US states.

For the full survey results, click here.

Neptune Flood is the largest entirely digital flood insurance company in the United States and is the alternative to the NFIP. Founded to change the way consumers and businesses think about and buy flood, and now, parametric earthquake insurance, Neptune Flood uses AI-driven technology to make it fast and easy for consumers to buy, and agents to sell, insurance.

SOURCE Neptune Flood