WASHINGTON—Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is proposing new legislation that would include a delay in premium increases by the National Flood Insurance Program.
The House Financial Services Committee ranking member shared that the legislation package will be released later this week in the House and Senate, and is aimed at delaying changes—including required premium increases—in the program called for under the 2012 Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act.
The proposed rules also task the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which oversees NFIP, to complete an affordability study and propose regulations that address affordability issues.
The delay, Waters said, applies to primary, non-repetitive loss residences that are currently grandfathered, all properties sold after July 6, 2012, and all properties that purchased a new policy after July 6, 2012.
Earlier this month a proposed overhaul of the National Flood Insurance Program was introduced by the Federal Reserve that would start to move back toward the private market, with credit unions and banks required to provide an alternative to the government program that has dominated the market for the past four decades.
