After Fall legislative action the government funded National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) through May 31st of 2012. This gave the NFIP a reprieve and it stayed on life support ~ again. Until now.
In an April 23rd press release FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, requested a long-term extension asking congress for a two year extension of the program. FEMA also reports that besides the inability to write new policies, if there is a lapse in authorization that diminishes income to the program and payments to recent flood victims might be delayed or even halted. Flood insurance is required in order for many mortgages to be approved in areas where a property is determined to be in a floodplain zone. The zone is determined by flood plain maps and the insurance requirement will vary depending on the nature of the property as well as the location.
There are a large number of real estate transactions that require flood insurance coverage and NAR reports that approximately 40,000 transactions per month would be placed in jeopardy by a failure of Congress to pass any reauthorization of the NFIP. You can read the FEMA press release by clicking here.
In a fall publication Henry Harrison wrote about the NFIP as wll as his personal experience with Hurricane Irene and with FEMA personel, whom he described as "professional, courteous and genuinely helpful." He concluded his article with the following statement; "Seems Congress is once again playing brinksmanship with America's flood insurance program. After our recent experience, that doesn't seem wise to us."
You can read more from Henry's October 2011 article at http://www.revmag.com/.
Written and Published by: VanEd
