I submitted this to a local newspaper as an editorial: Use it as a guide to write your own letters to congressmen, local officials, etc. (note that I couldnt add paragraphs accordingly in the facebook post.): The Homeowners Flood Insurance Reform Bill of 2013 sponsored by Menendez-Isakson passed in the Senate but failed to assist second homeowners and Repetitive Loss properties, while it does address all other categorical groups who were required to pay full risk actuarial rates from Biggert Waters Act of 2012. It protects, pre-firm properties that were grandfathered and anyone who owned a substantially damaged home. It further, minimizes the re-sale clause that forces new homeowners to pay full actuarial rates immediately. After reviewing plain language text and having a conversation with Menendezs office aid in Washington DC., who stated second homeowners will not gain any benefit from this bill, I shall explain why he made this statement. The second section of the Bill for reform overrides the first part and excludes second homeowners and Severe Repetitive Loss homes only. The discrimination against this group just gets even worse with this Bill as these owners are wrongly grouped to the SRL properties that represent 40% of the claims burden in the history of the program. Second homes represent only one quarter of this one percent group representing 1.2 million policies wrongly identified in the High risk pool, they were included in the grouping with businesses who also gains reform and maintains subsidies paid by all policyholders within the pool. Realize that the taxpayers never funded the subsidy since 1968 since this subsidy was paid within the premiums collected in the pool. Since the premiums were kept low, the debt was created from borrowing from the treasury (o.k., the taxpayers) However, it was and is borrowed because we pay back an unsustainable 1 Billion dollars of our 3.5 Billion premiums collected to interest on this debt annually. Therefore, not a penny has come out of the taxpayers pockets, that is unless the debt is forgiven in the future. This was the reason for Biggert Waters Act of 2012 reform that caused unaffordable rate increases upon everyone. While I admire that the Senate wishes to protect the working class of America within the reform bill, second homeowners have been unfairly categorized as rich millionaires with Mc mansions along the coast. However, we all know that many of those Mc mansions are owned by primary millionaire homeowners who gain from this reform, while many working glass second homeowners that own bungalows behind these homes are getting bills for $25,000 to $60,000 dollars. These people are police and firemen, construction workers, teachers and people who inherited family homes. Sure some are professionals, but by no means able to pay these unfathomable fees. GAO reports further prove that second homeowners do not account for any debt accumulated in the programs history to unfairly access unbalanced higher rates against them as a person who owns the structure instead of using the actual flood risk level of the home. Nevertheless, while the Bill does appear to include these two identified groups in the first section that delays the map rate increases which represents a stop on policyholders loss of subsidies for grandfathered properties, (these are properties that maintained subsidies on homes that were built prior to a later map issued in their community), the bill cancels this out in the second section of the Bill. It does so to these two groups only. They will not maintain the first sections subsidy and shall go to full risk rates over five years if they own a pre-firm property once a new map is released in their area. (Pre-firm properties are those built prior to their town first maps released). Therefore, once a new map is released in an area, second homeowners and SRLs (severe repetitive loss structures) structures identified as Pre-firm strikes out the inclusion of being a grandfathered structure. They then ultimately loose any and all subsidies on their home from the first part by being charged full risk actuarial rates for the next four years at the arbitrary 25% increase per year. 25% of the full risk rate, not 25% higher from you last years bill. I have reports of newly purchased second homes full risk rates see increases from $3,000 to $60,000.00 on homes valued at $150,000 to $400,000.00. NJ maps are becoming firm this July 2014 according to Menendez aid. Maps all along the east coast are in preliminary stages now and will gravely affect many vacation ownership communities all along the east cost. They will become ghost towns and will need to deal with an economic crisis while townships impacted will need to reduce their budgets or charge it back to their primary homeowners left over in these communities. There property values will also decrease. Lets face it, these prices were driven up by outsiders adding to the demand and coming in to purchasing these homes for higher prices along coastal areas. I am very saddened by this Bill and truly hope that the House of Representatives takes this into consideration when debating the Bill. I understand that they can improve this bill. Insurance Risk is spread between all policyholders, there is no way this tiny group can make any impact of the $30 Billion debt they need to address. It is also un-American to continue this blatant attack and bias by misconstruing all of these people are millionaires and could afford such hideous premiums that pay the values every two policies in 2 to 10 years while many have reported that their homes have never flooded in 30 or more years. Congress must stop the politics and roll their sleeves up as I have. There is a wealth of knowledge in the historic GAO reports siting sever NFIP mismanagement and misallocations of policyholders funds that contributed to this debt. An example is Tulane Universitys claim paid to them in the amount of $28.8, million and Holy Cross got 48.9 of NFIP funds after Hurricane Katrina. A hydro dam in Iowa got 13.8 and business owners wrongly got $10 Million according to OIG. I cant understand how they received our funds when a commercial policy is limited to a $500,000 claim. The WYO insurance companies earn 30% commission of each premium, holding no liability annually and earn another 30% to manage each claim. GAO stated that they forward the left over fund to the NFIP without submitting financial statements as required and NFIP doesnt audit the WYO expenses for years which is too late and their balance sheets dont add up. NFIP lacks sound policies and procedures and has been scorned for not using generally accepted accounting principals. In July of 2013, GAO reported that actuarially sound rates in indeterminable to impose on policyholders because they lack the necessary data and accounting records to spread the risk based upon flood risk to each home. Knowing this along with many other scathing reports, it is very difficult to wrap my arms around Charles Fugate, Head of Femas opinion that second homeowners subsidies must be removed, when the subsidy isnt a subsidy unless the taxpayer has contributed money to fund the program, which they have not. Unless some of the debt is forgiven, it is still a loan to all policyholders, not just second homeowners. GAO also stated back in 2006 that NFIP could never payback the debt even if they increase premiums to the highest rates allowed on everyone. So what is FEMA and Congress attempting to accomplish with these measures. Now we sit here with the highest rates imposed upon one small group who really had nothing to do with this entire mess based upon nothing more than economic status which is now class warfare discrimination practiced by our own government in the worst way. To ice the cake, Second homeowners receive policy terms with at cost value while primaries receive replacement value. This proved to leave thousands of second homes along the Jersey Shore unrepaired due to their receiving an average payout of $40,000 on fully gutted structures in need of $150,000 or more. Im not sure if our Congressmen are aware of this while they find it acceptable to charge these outrageous fees that will only cause all of these homeowners to either leave the insurance pool or in worst case, foreclose on their homes. You would think that our Governor, Local, County, and Federal officials in these areas would have shown concern to fight for their constituents impacted by this Law. By: Jennifer Netta, Second Homeowners Group of Stop Fema Now.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 16:54:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015