May & Associates, Inc.

May & Associates, Inc. is your partner in navigating through the paperwork in obtaining Flood insurance Certificates and Letter of Map Amendments (LOMA). Use this site to gain a better understanding and resources of the National Flood insurance program (NFIP) and how May & Associates, Inc. can help you by preparing elevation certificates and letter of map ammendments.

The National Flood Insurance Program

Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968 to help provide a means for property owners to financially protect themselves. The NFIP offers flood insurance to homeowners, renters, and business owners if their community participates in the NFIP. Participating communities agree to adopt and enforce ordinances that meet or exceed FEMA requirements to reduce the risk of flooding.

Congress mandated federally regulated or insured lenders to require flood insurance on properties that are located in areas at high risk of flooding.

As part of its administration of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the FEMA publishes flood hazard maps, called Flood Insurance Rate Maps, or FIRMs. The purpose of a FIRM is to show the areas in a community that are subject to flooding and the risk associated with these flood hazards. One of the areas shown on the FIRM is a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). The SFHA is the area that has a 1-percent or greater chance of flooding in any given year; this area is also referred to by some as the 1-percent-annual-chance floodplain, base floodplain, or the 100-year floodplain. The flood hazard and risk information presented on the FIRMs is the result of engineering studies that are performed by engineering companies, other Federal agencies, or communities, which are reviewed for compliance with FEMA guidelines and approved by FEMA.

FEMA uses the most accurate flood hazard information available and applies rigorous standards in developing the FIRMs. However, because of limitations of scale or topographic definition of the source maps used to prepare a FIRM, small areas may be inadvertently shown within an SFHA on a FIRM even though the property (legally defined parcel(s) of land, structure[s]) is on natural ground and is at or above the elevation of the 1-percent-annual-chance flood. This elevation is most commonly referred to as the Base Flood Elevation, or BFE. Such cases are referred to as "inadvertent inclusions."

For other small areas, earthen fill may have been placed during construction, thereby elevating a small area within the SFHA to an elevation that is at or above the BFE. This construction may have taken place during the time the engineering study was being performed or subsequent to that study. Because of the limited extent of the elevated area and the limitations of the map scale, it may not have been possible for FEMA to show this area as being outside the SFHA and so these areas have been incorrectly included in the SFHA on the FIRM.

Recognizing that these situations do occur, FEMA established administrative procedures to change the designation for these properties on the FIRM. These processes are referred to as the Letter of Map Amendment, or LOMA, process and the Letter of Map Revision Based on Fill, or LOMR-F, process. Through these processes, an individual who owns, rents, or leases property may submit certain mapping and survey information to FEMA and request that FEMA issue a document that officially removes a property and/or structure from the SFHA. In most cases, the applicant will need to hire May & Associates, Inc. to prepare an Elevation Certificate for the property. Upon receiving a complete application forms package, FEMA will normally complete its review and issue its determination in 4 to 6 weeks.

What to expect

FEMA will issue new FIRMs for Roscommon and Crawford County in 2012. Local communities have one year from the time the maps become effective to decide to participate in the NFIP.

FEMA will also update and issue new FIRMs for Iosco county in 2012.  This may result in additional properties included in the update flood zones.

In both cases, lenders may require property owners to obtain flood insurance for those properties included in the flood zones identified on the newly effect FIRMs.

The elevation certificate is the only way to document whether a structure truly is in or out of a flood hazard area. Very specific elevations of the structure, and the adjacent ground are collected for the certificate. Those elevations also have to be related to the vertical datum listed in the effective FIRM.

May & Associates, Inc. will visit your property and take the required elevation measurements and connect them to the required elevation datum. We will then prepare the elevation certificate and LOMA.  May & Associates, Inc. is registered with FEMA to submit letter of Map Amendments electronically (eLOMAs) to significantly reduce the processing time.

What to do next

We will need your propertry or parcel description and property address. We can then prepare a quote. The cost of a elevation certificate and associated LOMA depends on your location and the number of structures on your property.

We will examine the appropriate FIRM map, and detirmine the base flood elevation from the map, or by contacting the MDEQ representive.

We can then visit your site and take the required measurments and prepare the certificates.