Fla. Gov. to U.S. Senators: Stop flood insurance hikes Flood Insurance Toolkit Florida Realtors hosts a webpage to help members understand Biggert-Waters rules. Visit the Legislative Center of the website for more info. WASHINGTON – Sept. 18, 2013 – The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs will listen to witnesses today regarding flood insurance problems. The committee’s mission: Look at the implementation of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Act of 2012 one year after enactment. Yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott sent a letter to the state’s two lawmakers in the Senate – Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Bill Nelson – asking them to “delay or mitigate” those flood insurance premium increases scheduled to change on Oct. 1, 2013, under the Biggert-Waters reform act. “The governor’s letter is timely, given the U.S. Senate has a hearing on flood insurance today,” says John Sebree, senior vice president of public policy for Florida Realtors. “Florida Realtors supports efforts to delay National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) rate increases for grandfathered and – most importantly to our state’s real estate rebound – newly-purchased properties.” The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) has been lobbying Congress to conduct hearings and submitted testimony to the Senate committee today for the official record. In Scott’s letter, he echoes concerns expressed by Florida Realtors. In the Biggert-Waters law, “the sale of any property, or lapse of its policy, removes the rate ‘glide path’ and forces the new or current owner to immediately pay full-risk rates,” Scott says in his letter. He offers other examples of homeowners who will be impacted, and says, “This cannot be what Congress intended.” According to Scott, Florida families have paid over $16 billion through NFIP policies over the past 35 years – four times more than the amount they’ve claimed in damages. The state has superior building standards and done other things to mitigate flooding risk. “I urge you to take immediate action to ensure that the NFIP is improved in a way that is fair for Florida families,” Scott concludes. “It only makes sense – and Florida Realtors fully backs – postponing any premium increases until the results of the affordability study required by the Biggert-Waters Act have been released,” says Sebree.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 23:01:34 +0000
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