Community participation in the NFIP is voluntary. Each community must assess its flood hazard and determine whether flood insurance and floodplain management would benefit the community’s residents and economy. A community is an incorporated city, town, township, borough, village, tribe, or part of a county or parish that can enforce its own floodplain management ordinances.

More than 20,400 communities across the country have chosen to participate in the NFIP, and FEMA makes flood insurance available to their residents and businesses.

If a community chooses not to participate, flood insurance is not available from the NFIP. Moreover, if a President declares a disaster as a result of flooding, federal financial assistance will not be available for the permanent repair or reconstruction of insurable buildings. If the community applies and is accepted into the NFIP within 6 months of a presidential disaster declaration, these limitations on federal disaster assistance are lifted.

To find out if your community participates in the NFIP, go to http://www.fema.gov/fema/csb.shtm. If your community doesn’t participate, you can petition your local government to take the actions to qualify for NFIP participation.

If a community does not participate in the NFIP, a lender can only offer a conventional loan and is still required to inspect any flood maps to determine flood hazard risk and provide notice of such risk. Therefore, a lender may require a borrower to obtain flood insurance even in the absence of a federally mandated requirement.