At 10 a.m. (EDT) June 30, ASFPM Chair Ceil Strauss will be testifying on the NFIP at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Small Business and entrepreneurship.
The hearing, titled “No More Hikes: Small Business Survival Amidst Unaffordable Flood Insurance Rate Increases,” gives ASFPM the opportunity to comment on the private flood insurance bill pending before the Senate (S 1679), as well as discuss ASFPM’s 2017 NFIP reauthorization priorities that were unveiled last week at the ASFPM annual conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is our understanding that the hearing will be streamed live by going to the committee’s webpage, which can also be found here. ASFPM’s testimony can be found on the “testimony” section of www.floods.org at 10:30 a.m. (EDT).
Introduced last summer, the private flood bill or S 1679, is meant to make private flood insurance more widely available and interchangeable with NFIP policies by addressing continuous coverage problems and facilitating the determination as to what is an acceptable private flood insurance policy under the mandatory purchase requirement by delegating the decision to state insurance offices.
Unfortunately, there are several other consequences of the bill that have the potential to affect flood mapping, floodplain management and flood mitigation elements of the NFIP as well as overall community participation in the program. We had previously written about these impacts in The Insider.
ASFPM’s priorities for NFIP reauthorization and reform in 2017 can be found in our principles and priorities documents. The principles document identifies six high level areas where ASFPM feels need attention: flood mapping, debt forgiveness, the role of private flood insurance, flood insurance affordability, mitigation (including ICC) and mandatory purchase. The priorities document further elaborates on the principles with more detailed policy proposals for Congress to consider.