Congress recesses at height of Flood season without extending national program
The U.S. Senate failed to pass an extension of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) last week, which means the program will temporarily cease to issue or renew flood insurance policies. A FEMA memo issued back in October addressed the lapse, or “hiatus” as it was called. At the beginning of March, this also lapsed (2/28-3/2) and was remedied when Congress came back into session, but only for 30 days. Congress has been extending for short periods of time for the last year rather than making a number of changes to the program and extending for a number of years.
At this time, NFIP will not be able to: 1) issue new policies, 2) increase coverage on existing policies, or 3) issue renewal policies until the legislation can be extended.
NFIP authorization provisions are contained in HR 4851, which is now slated for debate within the Senate. The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid stated that if the Senate is unable to act on the bill before the NFIP expires, the Program will ultimately be re-authorized retroactively to March 28, 2010. We will keep you posted
More information can be found on the FEMA NFIP website.
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