Flood Zone AR

What Zone AR means

FEMA assigns Zone AR to areas that result from the decertification of a previously accredited flood protection system (such as a levee) that is determined to be in the process of being restored to provide protection from the 1-percent-annual-chance flood.

Zone AR is inside the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). Federal regulation applies specific floodplain management and insurance provisions to Zone AR while the flood protection system is being restored.

The federal mandatory purchase rule

Because Zone AR is inside the Special Flood Hazard Area, the federal mandatory purchase requirement applies: under the Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973, as amended, a building in this zone that secures a loan from a federally regulated or insured lender in an NFIP-participating community must carry flood insurance for the life of the loan. NFIP building coverage for a residential structure is capped by statute at $250,000, with contents coverage capped at $100,000.

Zones and premiums

Under the NFIP's current pricing methodology (Risk Rating 2.0), a property's flood zone is no longer the primary variable used to set its premium; zones continue to determine whether the mandatory purchase requirement applies. This page describes zone mechanics only and carries no premium statistics.

Verifying a property's zone

Zone boundaries are set by FEMA's flood maps and can change as maps are revised. The authoritative record for any address is FEMA's Flood Map Service Center. For the NFIP policy and claims statistics of a specific ZIP code, use the ZIP lookup tool on this site.