National Flood Insurance Program

Once again a northeast U.S. hurricane has been a major flood catastrophe event. This happened last year with hurricane Irene which saw the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program, pick up a significant portion of the economic losses from the storm. It’s expected that this will also happen with Sandy and this has once again highlighted […]

A new report from Swiss Re finds that flood insurance losses are growing rapidly while the insurability of flood as a peril continues to prove difficult for the insurance and reinsurance sectors. No other natural catastrophe impacts as many people on an annual basis, with floods impacting an estimated 500 million people per year. Back […]

At the end of last week the two U.S. houses of Congress passed a bill which will see the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) officially extended for another five years with some reforms enacted to it as well. The reforms do not go as far as many had wanted but along with the extension this […]

A new bill, which is ostensibly a tax bill but includes reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program, has been passed in the U.S. House of Representatives (on the 13th), the first step on a long route towards becoming law (or not). The bill passed was called the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation […]

We’ve written before suggesting that it may be time for the U.S. government to seek assistance from the private reinsurance and catastrophe bond markets with the significant burden of flooding risk that they assume through the National Flood Insurance Program. It’s thought that the NFIP wouldn’t be able to cope with a major flood catastrophe […]

Congressional plans for a five-year extension of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) suggest that FEMA may be given the power to transfer some of the risks associated with the flood insurance program to the private reinsurance and risk transfer markets. Currently the NFIP is thought to be able to cope with claims resulting from […]

Frank Nutter, President of the Reinsurance Association of America, has published an opinion piece on the Washington focused website theHill.com. In it he calls again for the National Flood Insurance Program to be reformed and allow the private sector to become the reinsurer and ultimate backstop for the program leaving the taxpayers unburdened.

The future of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has been in the balance for some time. There have been repeated calls from reinsurance industry figures and also some politicians to end the public subsidised  NFIP and to allow the private reinsurance and risk transfer markets to step in.