How to Fill Out FEMA Form 81-93: Standard Flood Hazard Determination

The Standard Flood Hazard Determination Form, still widely searched as FEMA Form 81-93 but now officially designated FEMA Form 086-0-32, is a one-page document a lender completes to record whether a property sits inside a federally mapped flood zone before a mortgage closes.¹²³

Get the Blank Form and Pull the Map Data First

Download the current PDF from FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program underwriting forms page. The version in use is FEMA Form 086-0-32, OMB Control No. 1660-0040.⁴ The form is free. Many lenders pay a third-party flood determination company to complete it, but nothing prevents a lender from preparing it in-house.

Before you start typing, open FEMA’s Map Service Center at msc.fema.gov and search by the property’s street address. That gives you the Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) panel that covers the property, its effective date, and the flood zone designation — every piece of data Section 2 asks for.⁵ The portal also generates a FIRMette, a printable property-specific excerpt of the official map. Keep that on hand while you fill out the form; you will be copying numbers from it.

Section 1: Lender and Property Information

Section 1 identifies who is making the loan and what property secures it. The fields are short, but a couple of them catch first-time preparers.⁴

Box 1, Lender/Servicer Name and Address. Enter the full name and mailing address of the lending institution or loan servicer.

Box 2, Collateral Description. Identify the property that secures the loan. A street address is usually enough. In rural areas where an address will not pinpoint the parcel, use a legal description: parcel number, lot and block, or latitude and longitude. If the space runs out, attach extra pages.

Box 3, Lender/Servicer ID Number. Optional. The name and address in Box 1 usually identify the lender well enough on their own.

Box 4, Loan Identifier. Also optional. Lenders use this to tie the form back to their internal loan tracking system.

Box 5, Amount of Flood Insurance Required. Optional on the form, but the number matters for the loan file. The minimum required amount is the lesser of three figures: the outstanding principal balance of the loan, the insurable value of the building (replacement cost minus land value), or the maximum coverage available under the National Flood Insurance Program.

Section 2: Flood Map Data and Community Status

Section 2 is where the determination itself happens. It has two parts.⁴

Part A: NFIP Community Jurisdiction

Enter the community name exactly as it appears on the NFIP map. Add the county (write “unincorporated areas” for unincorporated land, or “independent city” where that applies), the two-letter state abbreviation, and the six-digit NFIP Community Number. You can find the community number printed on the FIRM itself or by searching FEMA’s Community Status Book online.

If no community number exists, write “none.” That entry signals the area does not participate in the NFIP, which means federal flood insurance is not available for the property, and the form has to reflect that.²

Part B: NFIP Data Affecting the Building

Every entry in Part B comes off the FIRM panel:

Map Number (Community-Panel Number). The 11-digit number printed on the NFIP map covering the property.
Map Panel Effective/Revised Date. Use the most recent date printed on the panel.
Letter of Map Change (LOMC). If FEMA has issued a LOMA or LOMR affecting the property, list the date and case number. Leave blank if none applies.
Flood Zone. Copy the zone designation from the map. Any zone that starts with “A” or “V” is a Special Flood Hazard Area. If any part of the building falls within an SFHA, the entire building is treated as being in the SFHA.
No NFIP Map. Check this box only if no flood map covers the area at all.

The final checkbox — “Is the building/mobile home in a Special Flood Hazard Area?” — is answered by what you entered above. A “Yes” answer triggers the mandatory insurance purchase requirement for the loan.

Reading the Flood Zone You Entered

The zone code you copy into Part B tells the borrower and the lender how serious the risk is. Zones beginning with “A” cover areas with at least a one-percent annual chance of flooding, commonly called the 100-year floodplain. Zone V and its variants (VE, V1–V30) cover coastal areas with the same flood probability plus wave action from storms.⁶ Both A and V zones are Special Flood Hazard Areas and both trigger mandatory insurance on a federally backed loan.

Zone B (or Zone X shaded) marks moderate-risk areas between the 100-year and 500-year flood boundaries. Zone C (or Zone X unshaded) covers minimal-risk areas above the 500-year flood elevation.⁶ Federal law does not require flood insurance for properties in these lower-risk zones, though borrowers and lenders sometimes buy it voluntarily.

What a “Yes” Determination Sets in Motion

When Section 2 shows the property inside a Special Flood Hazard Area, the file has to move quickly. The lender must send the borrower a written notice explaining the flood hazard finding. Federal guidance calls for delivering that notice a reasonable time — generally at least ten days — before closing.⁷

The borrower then has to obtain a flood insurance policy and provide proof of coverage, typically the declarations page, before the loan can close. The required amount is the lesser of the outstanding principal, the insurable value of the building, or the NFIP maximum.⁴ For most single-family homes, the NFIP caps building coverage at $250,000 and contents coverage at $100,000.

A lender that fails to identify a property’s flood zone or fails to enforce the insurance requirement faces civil penalties of up to $2,730 per violation under the most recent inflation adjustment, with no annual cap on the total assessed against a single institution.³ Accuracy in Section 2 is where that risk sits.

Keep the Completed Form for the Life of the Loan

Once signed, the form does not get filed away and forgotten. Federal regulations require the lender to retain it for as long as it owns the loan.⁸ If the loan is sold or transferred, the completed form travels with the loan file.

FEMA updates its flood maps over time, and a property mapped in Zone X at closing can end up in Zone A after a revision. The lender remains responsible for tracking those changes — the industry calls this life-of-loan monitoring — and for requiring updated coverage if the property moves into a Special Flood Hazard Area.⁷

One boundary worth noting: if the FIRM places a property in an SFHA but the ground is actually above the base flood elevation, the borrower or owner can ask FEMA to change the designation through a Letter of Map Amendment or a Letter of Map Revision Based on Fill, usually supported by an Elevation Certificate from a licensed surveyor or engineer.⁹ That is a separate process from completing Form 086-0-32; the form itself must reflect what the current FIRM shows.

1
Federal Emergency Management Agency. National Flood Insurance Program Underwriting Forms
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 4104b – Standard Hazard Determination Forms
3
Federal Register. Rules of Practice and Procedure – Adjusting Civil Money Penalties for Inflation
4
Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA Form 086-0-32 – Standard Flood Hazard Determination Form
5
Federal Emergency Management Agency. Search By Address – FEMA Flood Map Service Center
6
Federal Emergency Management Agency. Flood Zones
7
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Summary of Flood Insurance Requirements
8
eCFR. 12 CFR Part 339 – Loans in Areas Having Special Flood Hazards
9
Federal Emergency Management Agency. Change Your Flood Zone Designation