According to Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, “homeowners and business owners in unincorporated Miami Dade will receive a 35% discount on their flood insurance premiums."

The discount is due to the installation of a pump station at Northwest Miami-Dade, which will suction water in flooded areas of unincorporated Miami-Dade. The pump state comes with a $21 million price tag, according to the Department of Public Works. Fortunately, “75% of the cost was picked up by FEMA," according to Cava in a recent Miami Herald article.

Thanks to the new pump station, the county has earned the discount as the they have acted in recent years to help prevent flooding. In addition to the new pump station, Miami-Dade has also put new development rules in place that take flooding into account as well as better mapping the risks across the county.

"These types of updates are critical to ensure that our communities can manage the stormwater and coastal water, especially with the increase that we are seeing as a result of climate change," said FEMA Director Deanne Criswell in a recent Miami Herald article.

Roughly 19 communities across the nation have made efforts to be upgraded in FEMA’s community rating system. Recent improvements have moved Miami-Dade to a class 3 from a class 5 community which is a major improvement. Miami-Dade is the largest community to achieve a level three rating which puts it in the top two percent nationwide.

“This is a huge step forward in resilience for our county,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava recently said in a recent WLRN article. “It indicates that we have been able to demonstrate that we can create more resilience, more protection for our community.”

“We want to see more communities join the community rating system, because it is the opportunity to get credit for doing more than the minimum,” said Victoria Salinas, FEMA’s associate resilience administrator in the WLRN article. “Insurance is a first line of defense in the recovery process.”