Sunday, September 17, 2017

Federal Flood Insurance

It's the only kind you can get.  Commercial insurance companies won't write flood insurance.  Cause, only homeowners liable to floods buy it.  When the flood occurs, all the insurance policies make claims.  Insurance only works when the majority of policy holders don't make claims, and their premiums go to paying off the few policy holders suffering losses.  Like fire insurance, the risk of fire is small, most homes don't burn down. Everybody buys fire insurance (homeowners insurance) because the banks won't do a mortgage unless the property is insured. At the end of the year, the insurance company has to pay a few claims and they have collected a lot of premiums.  With flood insurance, at the end of a flood year, the insurance company has humongous claims and not much in the way of premiums.  After the great Mississippi flood of 1927, the commercial insurance companies decided to not write flood insurance ever again.
   This caused a great hue and cry among owners of waterfront property, who found they could not sell their property, 'cause the banks wouldn't do a mortgage without flood insurance, and nobody would write flood insurance.   And so Congress created the federal flood insurance program.  The humongous losses now fall on taxpayers nationwide.  In effect, everyone is subsidizing owners of waterfront property.  And, since insurance is available people are building on scenic but flood prone properties.
  And, the federal insurance goes on and on, no matter how many times the property gets flooded.  There are properties that have been flooded and rebuilt up to 7 or 8 times.  On the taxpayer's dime. 
   The federal flood insurance program is up for renewal in Congress right now.  We taxpayers ought to get on our Congresscritters to put a limitation in the program.  A one flood policy.  The flood insurance pays off on the first flood, but won't renew after that.  Get flooded out once, and you ought to build on higher ground somewhere else.  If you rebuild on the same site, it's on your nickel, not the taxpayers. 

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