Rhonda Siegel did what conscientious homeowners are told to do. She called her broker before Hurricane Helene made landfall, confirmed she had both homeowners and flood insurance, and was told she was covered. When storm surge hit her one-story Clearwater Beach home on Sept. 26, 2024, she discovered how little that assurance was worth.

Siegel had a flood policy through the federally run National Flood Insurance Program — but it covered only the structure of her home, not the belongings inside it. Her declarations page read “contents: zero.”

“I looked down at my paper, and I could see right on it that it said content: zero,” Siegel told WFTS.

By the time she returned home, the losses were obvious. “You get to come back in, the water has receded, it doesn’t look that bad, and then I look at my sofa, and there is a water line, and I open cabinets, water comes pouring out — dishes, electrical anything is gone,” she said.

A federal program built for confusion

Justin Levey, an agent with Edgewater Insurance in Pinellas County, said Siegel’s mistake is far from unusual. “It’s more common than I would like it to be,” explained to WFTS.

The NFIP’s structure invites this kind of error. A standard federal flood policy caps dwelling coverage at $250,000 and contents coverage at $100,000 — but the two are sold separately, and mortgage lenders typically mandate only the dwelling portion. Contents coverage is optional and, according to Levey, sometimes dropped entirely to hold down premiums.

“Most loans are going to require you to have the $250,000 in dwelling if you’re in a flood zone, and then everything else is going to be voluntary,” Levey said. “There are times when, to keep the cost down, contents are not quoted as part of the policy.”

In other words, a homeowner can follow every rule her lender and broker lay out and still be left holding the bag — not because she was careless, but because a federal insurance bureaucracy defaults to the coverage that protects the bank’s collateral, not the family’s possessions.

After learning what had happened, Siegel added the full $100,000 in contents coverage. It cost her about $1,600 more a year.

“Total worth it, 100%,” she said.

The real lesson: government minimums aren’t personal protection

Siegel now wants her experience to warn other homeowners: don’t assume a policy sold as “flood insurance” actually protects everything you own.

“I don’t think that’s talked about enough to make sure that, yes, you need to have flood insurance, but make sure you have the right insurance underneath that,” she said.

It’s a case study in the limits of relying on a one-size-fits-all federal program to manage individual risk. The NFIP sets a floor, not a safety net — and homeowners who assume otherwise are the ones left explaining water-stained furniture to their insurance company. Levey recommends every homeowner pull their declarations page now, before a storm is on the horizon, and confirm exactly what is and isn’t covered, since most insurers stop allowing changes once a storm threat emerges.

“I felt stupid. I felt like, how did I miss that?” Siegel said. “But I looked back, and I was like, gosh, I thought I did everything right.”

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