Steps to Improve the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)

Comments of J. Robert Hunter, Director of Insurance

The NFIP is up for reauthorization this year. The Program has had very serious deficiencies and, particularly, has cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars while often encouraging unwise construction in the nation’s higher-risk flood plains through below cost premiums and old maps not reflecting the impacts of development.

Consumer Federation of America (CFA) supports Congressional action to reauthorize the Program but is very concerned that such reauthorization be accompanied by significant reforms in order to make the Program more self-sufficient over time and reduce the risk of flood damage through better enforcement of the Program’s land use aspects and use of actuarial rates for all construction in high-risk zones of the nation.