[Direct quote re-posted from The Atlantic…]
August 5, 2017
Can Congress Bring the National Flood Insurance Program Above Water?
The debate over too-low premiums and repetitive payouts grinds on, even as the thunderheads roll in and the water levels rise.
By Michelle Cottle
Get those sandbags and storm shutters ready. Peak hurricane season is bearing down on the Atlantic coast. From New Orleans to the Jersey Shore, nothing focuses the mind quite like a looming megastorm. And while this time of year is always meteorologically suspenseful, now it’s even more so. That’s because among the many, many things Congress is struggling to cross off its to-do list is the reform and reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
As problematic government programs go, the NFIP is a doozy. Established in 1968, it handles some 5 million policies nationwide. Unfortunately, these days it collects less in premiums and surcharges than it shells out in claims and other expenses, leaving the Treasury Department—read: taxpayers—to plug the holes. Which means every time some neighborhood in Galveston or Daytona winds up underwater (Texas, Florida, and Louisiana account for more than half of all policies), the rest of the nation effectively bails them out. Not that coastal areas bear all the blame—rivers have a nasty habit of overflowing as well. Last August, an ugly storm parked itself over Baton Rouge for several days, dropping upwards of 20 inches of rain that caused $10 billion in damages. All told, the FEMA-managed NFIP is neck-deep in debt to the tune of $24.6 billion.
The structural, some even say moral, flaws of NFIP are vast and varied.
[Direct quote re-posted from The Atlantic…]