re: FEMA raising flood insurance rates in Southwest Florida, blames bad Hurricane Ian rebuild

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So a guy in Nebraska is wondering why his tax dollars are going to someone who builds a structure in a hurricane zone.

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The flood insurance program is an insurance program managed by the federal government and only backstopped by the federal government when claims exceed premiums collected. It is managed by a few companies that write the policies on behalf of the government. NFIP has been running in the red since 2005 when it paid nearly 13 billion in losses due to Hurricane Katrina. It has a debt tab that has grown to over 20 billion dollars to the U.S. Treasury after other disasters not just from hurricanes.

In my opinion, 20 billion is drop in the bucket of the largess of the federal budget paying billions in aide to the Ukraine in a winless war against Russia, billions more to feed and house migrants that shouldn’t be allowed to walk across the border, billions more to fund endless studies the yield little to no substantial value to the country, and the endless waste in other sectors of the government inflating the value of goods and services.

What could be done to fix the problem is to get Congress to pay off the debt and enact better controls over future losses. Now Risk Rating 2.0 took rates to an other extreme. Many would agree that some small increases are necessary if it is to return the program to profitability to build a reserve to backstop the losses. Also, Congress should step in and in years of catastrophic losses like a hurricane they should eat the losses and not borrow from the federal treasury as part of FEMA funding in response to national disasters.

This would ensure the availability of affordable Flood Insurance.