GMAC Mortgage and Flood Insurance

GMAC Mortgage and Flood Insurance

When I purchased my house several years ago using a mortgage, I did not need to get flood insurance.

The house did not seem to be in a flood zone, although, the Sellers were asked the question anyway and responded that to the best of their knowledge that it was not in a flood zone.

My insurance company indicated nothing about needing flood insurance nor did my mortgage company.

This was all fine with me.

Over the years, because of refinancing and because of every lender with whom I had a mortgage eventually selling my mortgage to some other lender, I went through about 12 different lenders. I only refinanced twice up to that time.

During all of this time, none of the lenders indicated any changes that would require me to get flood insurance.

Then along came GMAC Mortgage who purchased my mortgage.

After about three months with them, they sent me a letter indicating that I needed to have flood insurance. Conveniently, they, also, told me that I could get it with GMAC Insurance and that, in fact, they would charge me for a flood insurance policy with GMAC Insurance if I did not otherwise get a policy.

Of course, I called and asked about the flood insurance; surely there must be a mistake.

I was treated rudely. I was told that their records, which they would not supply, indicated that my house was in a flood zone and whether I liked it or not I had to get flood insurance.

I stated that the terms of the mortgage to which I agreed and which they purchased did not have any requirement for flood insurance. They did not care. Get flood insurance or we will get it for you.

I asked what I would need to do to convince them that I did not need flood insurance. They told me that I would have to have the FEMA Flood maps changed to show that my house was not in a flood zone. They implied that they had done a review of these maps and found my house to be in a flood zone.

I went back to the broker who provided me with this loan which was ultimately purchased by GMAC. He found this request from GMAC perturbing as did I. Fortunately, he had done his work and kept the records. He had a certification based upon a review of the FEMA maps indicating that my house was not in a flood zone.

I sent a copy of this certification to GMAC which was enough to finally have them remove the requirement to get flood insurance.

I told the representative at GMAC that I intended to refinance my loan with someone else simply because they put me through such a hassle.

I did refinance, fortunately to slightly better terms, but would have done so even without the better terms.

Recently, I had a lender stop by who was trying to get my business referrals. I was pleased with his presentation and probably would have given him some referrals until he told me that most of his loans were sold to GMAC Mortgage. I told him to come back when he worked with a real lender.