We had a natural ground water spring about 10 feet from the north side of our house. That then was manually diverted into a culvert that was also sitting right below a second Natural ground water spring. All of this took place under 40 feet away from the housing foundation. The culvert which we bought and installed professionally out of pocket then diverted it all south to connect to the ditch on the side of the road for full drainage.

Despite all this we never actually had flood insurance till post 2000ish. We were playing with a serious disaster and not a lick of insurance coverage for it. The insurance was my mother yelling at me to grab a shovel and clear out the entry to the culvert and hell even the ditch to prevent our driveway from washing away.

In retrospect… It was bonkers.

Side note whenever it was heavy rains… the water from the springs would go from a constant dribble to full on mini white water rafting river at the drop of a hat.

When I was shopping for a house last year, the flood zone map was among the first things I checked. Something was wrong with the map, as it would often say, "10% chance of home being in 15 feet of water over the next decade." That's over the top, but there are definitely houses that have been flooded to waist high in this area. During a storm last month we got 10 inches of rain in a 24 hour period, so I bought a house on a slight elevation, just to be sure.