Adding coordinator cuts cost of flood insurance

WARREN — The appointment of a Trumbull County employee to be coordinator of the county’s National Flood Insurance Community Rating System will reduce costs for those people who need flood insurance.

Trish Nuskievicz, the county’s floodplain coordinator, received the new job duties in November. She works for the county’s planning commission, headed by director Alan Knapp.

Nuskievicz oversees a program that tries to reduce flooding hazards. Her new duties involve providing information to the public and assisting with updates of flood maps made in 1978.

When the flood maps are updated, the public is better able to gauge the risk of flooding in various areas, Nuskievicz said. That can inform property owners that they either need to buy flood insurance or that they can discontinue having it, she said.

Nuskievicz says county residents receive an automatic 5 percent reduction in flood insurance rates for appointing a coordinator. It can then experience reductions of as much as 45 percent depending on the success of its program.

The program gets a rating of between 1 and 10, with 10 being the worst. The county moves to a 9 rating by having a coordinator and getting accepted into the program, which is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, she said.