Latest Flood Headlines

All the headlines from our Flood Topic Page, ordered by recency.

National Flood Insurance Program Extended Until Dec. 8

Sep 11 2017 // President Donald Trump last Friday signed legislation reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program until Dec. 8, 2017, which buys more time for Congress to consider reforms of the program.The NFIP was set to expire...

Prospect General Expands Admitted Residential Flood Program into Utah

Sep 11 2017 // Prospect General Insurance Agency has expanded Flood Guard, an admitted residential flood insurance product, into Utah.Flood Guard is an alternative to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Through its rating...

Irma Update: Tropical Storm Exits Florida for Georgia After Flooding Cities, Cutting Utilities

Sep 10 2017 // Downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, Irma flooded several northern Florida cities with heavy rain and a high storm surge on Monday as it headed out of the state after cutting power to millions and ripping roofs...

Rethinking Freight Flood Risk Management After Hurricane Harvey

Sep 8 2017 // A week before Hurricane Harvey walloped Houston, workers for Union Pacific Corp. began moving rail cars out of the railroad’s Englewood switching yard near downtown and brought in enough generators to fill 70 tractor...

Tackling Houston’s Flood-Damaged Cars Takes an Army of Tow Trucks

Sep 8 2017 // How do you remove hundreds of thousands of damaged cars from a massive city still mired in water and muck? Tow-truck driver Alex Toll will tell you: one vehicle at a time.Toll is part of an army of more than 1,000 tow...

New Texas Task Force Formed to Investigate Hurricane-Related Fraud

Sep 8 2017 // Federal prosecutors will lead a new Houston-based group created to help law enforcement agencies respond to an inevitable wave of fraud and other criminal activity set off by Harvey’s punishing rains.Authorities are...

Now May Be the Time for Homeowners to Buy a Dam

Sep 8 2017 // Traveling from Louisiana, four 18-wheelers and more than a dozen workers rolled into the heart of Houston last Tuesday morning. The Cajun crew was there to unfurl and install a unique form of flood protection: three-foot...

Congress Eyes More FEMA Disaster Aid, Short-Term Flood Insurance Renewal

Sep 7 2017 // The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency will run out of disaster assistance funding on Friday unless Congress approves more money, two Florida senators warned on Thursday.As Hurricane Irma barrels through the...

New York City Reviews Plans on Flooding After Houston Disaster

Sep 7 2017 // New York is reviewing its plans for a massive rainstorm after the flooding that has left parts of Houston underwater for days.“We’re looking at what a Harvey-type event would mean in New York City,” said...

AIR Worldwide Estimates $65B – $75B in Texas Property Damage from Harvey Flooding

Sep 7 2017 // Boston-based catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide has estimated property losses from the flooding in Texas caused by Hurricane Harvey’s record-breaking rainfall will be between $65 billion and $75 billion.These...

Why the Number of Coastal Homeowners with Flood Insurance Has Been Shrinking

Sep 7 2017 // Amanda Spartz nearly did not renew her home’s flood insurance policy after her first year in Florida. Two hurricanes came close to the Fort Lauderdale suburbs last year, but they didn’t hit and her home...

Florida’s Private Flood Insurers Could Face Big Test from Hurricane Irma

Sep 6 2017 // Hurricane Irma could test a nascent private flood insurance market in Florida that some advocates say is a model for making U.S. flood coverage more affordable and commonplace in high-risk areas.Florida’s private...

Hurricane Harvey Puts Pressure on Regional Insurers in Texas, Says A.M. Best

Sep 5 2017 // Losses anticipated from Hurricane Harvey are unlikely to exceed the top reinsurance limits of insurers writing business in Texas, according to new Best’s Special Report, titled, “Texas Insurers Expected to...

Why Federal Flood Program Is Sinking Deeper Into Debt: CBO Report

Sep 5 2017 // The federal flood insurance program is on a course to continue falling deeper in debt, even when there is no catastrophic storm like Katrina or Harvey.The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is currently on a path that...

Remnants of Harvey Spawn Tornadoes, Floods Across Deep South

Sep 5 2017 // Harvey spread its misery across the Deep South as flooded creeks drove people from their homes in Tennessee and Kentucky and an apparent tornado damaged homes and toppled trees in a rural area of northwest Alabama.More...

Harvey Leaves Texans to Clean Up Amid Health and Environmental Dangers

Sep 4 2017 // Harvey has moved on from the U.S. Gulf Coast, leaving behind a toxic stew of human sewage, dead cattle, leaking chemical plants, spilled gasoline storage tanks and abandoned pickup trucks.The cleanup will take patience,...

Insured Loss Estimates from Harvey Will Take Time

Sep 4 2017 // Flood losses from Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall as a Category 4 storm late on Aug. 25 near Rockport, Texas, are expected to vastly outnumber those from wind but that doesn’t mean property losses will be...

Flood Insurance Losses from Harvey Could Match Katrina’s, I.I.I. Says

Sep 4 2017 // Flood damage in Texas from Hurricane Harvey may equal that from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, according to an insurance research group.As heavy rain pounded Houston and...

WSIA: Past, Present and Future

Sep 4 2017 // The wholesale, specialty and surplus lines market is healthy and stable with a bright future.Proof of this can be found in recent quantitative analysis like A.M. Best’s 2017 Special Report on U.S. Surplus Lines, as...

Devastating S. Asia Floods Kill 1,400, Expose Lack of State Planning for Monsoons

Sep 1 2017 // The most devastating floods to hit South Asia in a decade have killed more than 1,400 people and focused attention on the poor planning and lack of preparedness for annual monsoon rains, as authorities struggle to get aid...