Flood insurance is driven entirely by location. A home's age has nothing to do with it. If the property sits in a FEMA-designated Special Flood Hazard Area (zones starting with A or V) and you're financing with a federally backed or regulated loan, flood coverage is required. Outside those zones it generally isn't, whether the house is brand new or a hundred years old. Check the flood zone on any property before you fall in love with it. What surprises people is how much the premium can move. One of us watched a flood premium creep from around $800 to $900 a year up to nearly $5,500. A neighbor's tip led to a professional elevation certificate, which showed the home sat higher than the flood maps assumed, and that certificate cut the cost substantially. So if a flood premium looks unreasonable, don't treat the FEMA or NFIP number as fixed. Get an elevation certificate and shop private flood insurers, which can price very differently. One more caution for flood-zone renovations. We saw a Huntington Beach flood-zone lot where a heavy remodel took the home down to a single remaining wall, and when that last wall came down, the project lost its grandfathered zoning status. The city treated the lot as effectively unbuildable under current rules, and it sat vacant for years. If you're buying in a flood zone to renovate heavily, understand the grandfathering rules before a wall comes down.