100,000 Miami-Dade residents will get a big discount on flood insurance. Are you one?

As insurance costs skyrocket across Florida, some Miami-Dade residents will soon see a significant break on their annual flood insurance payments.

Due to a change in how the Federal Emergency Management Agency looks at Miami-Dade’s flood risk, about 100,000 residents will see a 35% discount in their flood insurance premiums starting April 1, the agency announced Friday.

Of course, national flood insurance typically costs a fraction of hurricane windstorm coverage, but the change could still save many people hundreds of dollars or more a year. It’s estimated the designated residents and business owners in Miami-Dade will save $12 million a year overall.

“Flooding is obviously a top concern to our residents, to our businesses. It affects all of us,” said Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. “We know people are not taking insurance because of the cost, so we really hope this will be an inducement for them to protect their homes and businesses.”

Who qualifies? The new discount applies to anyone in unincorporated Miami-Dade who has a flood insurance policy, both inside the flood zones — where it’s mandatory — and everywhere else.

The county earned the new discount after proving to FEMA that it had done a lot in recent years to address flooding risk, including better warnings for residents, new development rules that take flooding into account and better mapping of the risks across the county.

One big change was to the county’s flood criteria, which now requires all properties in unincorporated Miami-Dade — and some cities — to elevate the ground level of their properties to at least six feet above sea level.

“We were able to demonstrate we’re serious about making the changes to resilience,” said Marina Blanco-Pape, the county’s floodplain manager.

Another key change was in how Miami-Dade warns its residents about their current and future flood risk. The county has several publicly available maps of local flood zones and recently completed a new plan to better warn residents of imminent floods, like the massive thunderstorms that often swamp Brickell.

“Part of that is communication, getting the message out,” said Pete Gomez, head of the county’s department of emergency management. “We’ll be messaging that stronger.”

Miami-Dade is now one of only 19 communities across the country that have received a “class 3” designation in FEMA’s community rating system, an opt-in program designed to reward communities for going above and beyond the basic FEMA flood guidelines with insurance discounts. Monroe County, Pinellas County and Cutler Bay also have class 3 ratings.

“It’s a really big deal that they have been able to do the hard work and make sure they have all the measures in place to help their community,” said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who came to Miami-Dade County on Friday to announce the “unprecedented” upgrade from class 5.

Criswell said her visit to South Florida to tout Miami-Dade’s accomplishment is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s push to move FEMA from an agency that reacts to disasters after they happen to one that helps protect communities before a disaster even happens. That involves getting more places involved in the community rating system and breaking the “rinse and repeat cycle” of building in the same place, the same way after disaster strikes.

“We have the resources and tools to get ahead of that, to help communities build back better and more resilient,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s going to save lives and it’s going to help save money.”