Legislators Propose Spreading Out NFIP Rate Hike

A group of U.S. representatives from New York proposed a bill that would stretch out the National Flood Insurance Program’s premium increase timeline.

On March 11, U.S. Reps. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced the introduction of H.R.960, the Flood Victim Premium Relief Act of 2013.

The lawmakers said the bill is designed to ease what they described as “the burden of skyrocketing flood insurance rates” on victims of Superstorm Sandy. The bill would extend the premium increase timeline for primary residences in areas that have been declared a federal disaster area after July 6, 2012 from five years to eight years.

Under the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, the maximum rate hike the NFIP could impose in a given year was raised from 10 percent to 20 percent.

This was done as an attempt to bring the heavily indebted program back to solvency over time. H.R. 960 would slow the rate of increase in declared disaster areas for the first four years after a remapping from 20 percent per year to 5 percent per year – with rates in years five through eight returning to the original 20 percent-a-year increases. “Given the massive destruction faced by victims of Sandy, this bill is vitally important,” said Rep. Grimm.