Fort Myers Beach residents to pay more for flood insurance than others in Lee

As if things haven’t been tough enough for Fort Myers Beach residents, entering 2025 they will be paying more than their neighbors for flood insurance as they continue to rebuild after Hurricane Ian in 2022.

That’s because the town has been put on probation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for not meeting requirements for a discount the rest of Lee County and its cities qualified for.

While on probation, new and renewal policies issued through the federal National Flood Insurance Program will remain available to residents of the barrier island, but they will have to pay a $50 surcharge. And then, staring April 1, prices will increase about $300 per year because they are losing a 25% discount that comes with the town’s ranking in the NFIP’s Community Rating System, a FEMA spokesperson says.

Meanwhile, after nearly a year of work between the cities of Bonita Springs, Cape Coral and Estero as well as unincorporated Lee, the localities will keep their rating and the discount that comes with it.

So, how did we get here?

The problems began March 28 when FEMA officials notified Lee and the cities, including Fort Myers Beach, of a ratings downgrade that would raise resident’s flood insurance premiums by the 25%.

The NFIP was created in 1968 to provide insurance to help “reduce the socio-economic impact of floods,” FEMA says on its website. The program sells the insurance policies to property owners, renters and businesses through a public-private partnership between the government and insurance companies.

As part of the program, the Community Rating System assigns points to localities and qualifies certain communities’ residents for discounts that can cut insurance premiums by hundreds of dollars each year.

According to FEMA, the rating downgrade to the cities and Lee was the result of a large amounts of unpermitted work, lack of documentation and a failure to properly monitor activity in special flood hazard areas, including substantial damage compliance.

Officials in the localities — despite letters from FEMA showing the contrary — say they were never told of the findings and questioned FEMA’s motives.

Despite that, following the decision the county and cities spent months working to get FEMA the documentation it requested and to submit a corrective plan by a Nov. 18 deadline.

On Nov. 21, FEMA announced Lee and four of the cities had met the requirements and maintained their Class 5 rating.

Fort Myers Beach, however, was downgraded to a Class 10 rating beginning April 1.

According to a letter to the town from FEMA’s regional administrator Robert Samaan, the probation and rating downgrade is “because of the outstanding compliance issues remaining” that need to be addressed.

The letter says that on July 19 the town was given a list of five conditions to complete by the Nov. 18 deadline to maintain the rating.

Among those conditions, the town needed to come up with a plan that included actions and timelines “to address all identified program deficiencies and violations to the maximum extent possible.”

The town was also asked to “assess all floodplain development from Hurricane Ian in the Special Flood Hazard Area, ensuring that permits for all repairs, construction and development were obtained consistent with local floodplain management regulations.”

But, the letter says, the town only met two of the five requirements. It, the letter says, submitted a plan to address deficiencies and established a process that made sure it was in “substantial damage compliance” for future storms.

However, FEMA wrote, a crosswalk assessment tool was not completed, preventing the completion of two of the requirements and the town did not remove “non-compliant structures” that were incorrectly permitted and should not have been placed in the Special Flood Hazard Area.

Despite the downgrade, Samaan writes that “I’ve instructed my staff that we will continue to provide technical assistance to Fort Myers Beach to meet the required program standards and potentially end probation as soon as practicable.”

Fort Myers Beach Town manager Andrew Hyatt, in a statement, says “staff is committed to following our FEMA approved plan and will continue to collaborate with FEMA” until it regains its rating and discount.

But it could be some time before residents see their discounts return.

According to the FEMA letter, the probation will “remain in effect until all remaining program deficiencies and violations have been corrected to the maximum extent possible.”

And even then, the “town is not eligible to reapply to the Community Rating System for a higher-class rating until the town’s probationary period is concluded, the town is in full compliance with the minimum requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program and at least two years has passed since the town was placed in probationary status.”