As communities across the south focus on immediate post-hurricane concerns such as saving and protecting lives and property and bringing badly-needed resources to the area, the costs inflicted by both Hurricanes Harvey and Irma will be felt for months and years to come. NMHC/ NAA continue to closely monitor the aftermath of these storms with our members and will work with state, local and federal officials to ensure the disaster recovery and housing needs of those affected are met.
These historic storms are likely to have a far-reaching impact on one of our top legislative priorities--the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Just as we saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, there is bound to be an incredible number of claims filed. This is especially problematic as the NFIP is currently $24.6 billion in debt and is now set to expire on December 8, 2017. Previously set to expire on September 30, a short-term extension was included in a legislative package that also provided funding for hurricane relief and other priorities.
While we are appreciative of the work done to prevent the program from lapsing, we are urging lawmakers to come together in a bipartisan fashion to quickly reauthorize the NFIP for the long-term and reform it in such a way that it ensures flood coverage continues to be available at all times, in all market conditions for every at-risk rental property.
NMHC/NAA believe these reform efforts should include sensible changes that improve the accuracy of the flood maps; increase apartment communities’ access to current flood mitigation funding and programs; expand NFIP to allow for umbrella policies; include business interruption coverage for rental properties; and provide replacement cost value (RCV) instead of actual cost value (ACV) to damaged apartment properties.
More information on the NFIP and our work to reauthorize it can be found on our NFIP resources page.
Staff Resource
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