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FEMA NFIP Empowering and Preparing Americans for Flood Recovery

Flood insurance brings you peace of mind.

Opportunity 

Flooding is the most common and costly natural disaster in the United States, and its severity and reach are only increasing with climate change. However, flood insurance coverage, which offers the best protection against the financial consequences of flooding to homes and businesses, remains low nationwide. Yes& is now in the fourth year of partnering with FEMA on integrated marketing and communications to promote the government-backed National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which allows policyholders to protect themselves financially and recover faster from flooding.

Family on a couch like they're on a game show, being prompted to pick a door.

Insight

Consumer surveys show that people who choose flood insurance are happy. However, people who don’t have it don’t know it’s a choice they can make, while others have dismissed it based on perceptual biases regarding their risk. Compound these findings with the fact that our modern world provides a paralyzing number of choices, and it is easy to understand why policies are low.

Therefore, we decided to flip “Choice” from negative to positive. NFIP is a brand that empowers Americans with the knowledge to choose a path to faster financial recovery, preparedness, resilience, readiness, and peace of mind by helping them “Choose flood insurance.” We have taken this platform to create cohesive yet flexible creative campaigns designed for specific audience needs and flood risks.

Screenshots from flood insurance website.

Solution

Driven by our insight, we developed a strategic plan and messaging that used social norming and applied behavioral change theory to soften and remove perceptual barriers and overconfidence biases. In addition, we utilize advanced audience segmentation data to focus marketing tactics on the most likely to need and purchase flood insurance, which includes recent home buyers and, counterintuitively, nonpolicy holders in areas with high penetration. Finally, we reviewed plans focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which prompted us to adjust our strategy to target non-English speakers with in-language advertising and resources.

Our consumer campaigns connect with insurance agents who sell the product and stakeholders across federal, state, local, and tribal governments, the private sector, and public service organizations. Deliverables and tactics include the following:

  • Behavioral research resulting in personas and audience personas
  • Integrated strategic plans and media strategy
  • Creative concepts
  • Advertising — television, radio, digital, print, paid social and media partnerships, etc.
  • Organic social and digital media
  • Earned media
  • Executive support
  • Conference support
  • Success story testimonials
  • Publications, fact sheets, and infographics
  • Data, analytics, and measurement

With a few exceptions, all creative materials are also provided in Spanish. We have also translated several ads and publications into traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Tagalog, Arabic, Creole, and Hindi.

Pick a door game show, where you choose between insured and not.

The ‘&’

Yes& helped FEMA and the NFIP restructure their approach to creativity by providing a unified platform and restructuring campaigns to focus on flood risk rather than individual FEMA regions, allowing for more strategic and cost-effective campaigns. We also introduced several new tactics to FEMA, including native advertising, interactive high-impact units, page takeovers, and customized placements triggered by local weather events.

the Results

In 2023, we developed a mix of communications across a variety of media, including 2,286 campaign deliverables, driving impressive annual results and year-over-year increases.

A regression analysis of our hurricane campaign showed a positive impact on flood insurance policy growth. The decline in policy renewals has also slowed year over year. In addition, a follow-up biennial consumer survey shows a 16% decrease in non-policyholders who haven’t spoken to anyone about flood insurance. In contrast, conversations with flood insurance agents increased by 23 percent.

6M

Website Visits (6%)

573M

Advertising impressions (261%)

31M

Earned media impressions (455%)

161k

Consumer goal conversions (383%)

45

Policyholders reached through direct mail (101%)

6k

Social media followers (100%)

203k

Unique email opens among industry and stakeholders (223%)

245k+

Publications ordered (stable

1,058

Direct interactions with key stakeholders and conferences (211%)