What is the Community Rating System?
The National Flood Insurance Program's (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) is a voluntary incentive program that recognizes and encourages community floodplain management activities that exceed the minimum NFIP requirements. As a result, flood insurance premium rates are discounted to reflect the reduced flood risk resulting from the community actions meeting the three goals of the CRS:

- Reduce flood losses
- Facilitate accurate insurance rating
- Promote the awareness of flood insurance

For CRS participating communities, flood insurance premium rates are discounted in increments of 5%; i.e., a Class 1 community would receive a 45% premium discount, while a Class 9 community would receive a 5% discount (a Class 10 is not participating in the CRS and receives no discount). The CRS classes for local communities are based on 18 creditable activities, organized under four categories:

- Public Information
- Mapping and Regulations
- Flood Damage Reduction
- Flood Preparedness

Show All Answers

1. What is the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000?
2. What is a Local Hazard Mitigation Plan?
3. What is meant by "mitigation"?
4. Who was involved?
5. What is a Steering Committee?
6. What hazards does it address?
7. Will Global Warming or Climate Change be addressed in the Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan?
8. Does the State of Washington have a State Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan?
9. How does it affect me?
10. How will it affect my community?
11. What is the Community Rating System?
12. What if my jurisdiction isn’t a part of the Multi-jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation planning process?
13. Did it cost anything to produce this plan?
14. Where are the hazards in my area?
15. Who can I contact for questions?