The National Flood Insurance program was set to expire the End of September 30 2017.
Our government seemed to be off to a good start addressing it before the election of Trump and then started working on it early in the year. I was quite hopeful that they would come together to address the #1 natural that we face in this country. But it appears to be a bigger issue then many had thought it would be.
The NFIP was created 1968 as a response to the flood disasters our country was facing, it was generally limited to constructing flood-control works such as dams, levees, seawalls and the like as well as provide disaster relief to flood victims.
The program then entered into selling flood insurance because private flood entities couldn’t and wouldn’t handle major catastrophes like the peril of flood.
The program over the years has gone through many adjustments more notably the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 (BW-12) which opened up the option for private flood insurance companies to come back into the market. The flooding of Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Sandy (2012) basically drove the program into debt to the 25 billion and this was the government’s attempt to correct course.
2017 hurricane season has created more debt for the program. I was so hopeful that these major storms would almost force our government to address the flood insurance issue and begin to address it. Guess we will have to wait in hopes that December will bring the much-needed reform to the program.