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Have you contacted lender with this discrepancy. I remembered years ago I had a conflict and I eventually went along with the lender's 3rd party which is above my pay level.
Years ago, you probably should've stuck your ground. Appraisals are not to be "made as instructed".
3rd party Flood companies are paid to do flood determination and have insurance I assume to back up their claims.
Pull that file out where you decided to cave to your client's desires and read the flood determination carefully. I'll bet a third-grader could read aloud to the courtroom at your trial that "although portions of the subject site lie in a FEMA specially identified flood hazard area, the improvements lie outside of it". That would be enough to find you guilty of negligence if somebody built a structure on a portion of that site afterward, which subsequently got washed away in the (entirely predictable) flood which followed. You didn't "protect yourself" at all.
The report which I changed had no problems for me. If there was, 3rd party Flood company needs support itself. When was last time you heard of 3rd party Flood company making big mistake in news and hear a big brouhaha?
www.insurancejournal.com
What don't you understand here? You are appraising "the entire site". The lenders flood determination covers "the improvements" which might require flood insurance. You don't require flood insurance on raw land, there is nothing to be rebuilt if it floods. It's just easier for the lender to pressure the appraiser to change the first page of their appraisal than it is to go through the additional documentation steps required when the appraisal doesn't match the flood certification. You were manipulated. I was in a continuing education class one time when the instructor told the tale of a 10 acre site where the appraiser did precisely as you did. Later, the borrower decided to build a nice shop down by the dry creek bed where all the pretty trees were. Of course, it was washed away shortly thereafter. She pulled out her appraisal where it clearly indicated that her property was not located in a flood hazard zone, and the appraiser (along with the lender) were sued because she contended that she would have never bought that property if she knew that she didn't have full use of the entire 10 acres. Not sure how that one turned out, however, think about that the next time you decide to offload your responsibilities onto a third party.
It's hard for the buyer to beware when all their documentation sucks.