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National Flood Insurance Extended for the Texas Coast Through 2011National Flood Insurance Extended for the Texas Coast Through 2011
Congress has unanimously approved a one-year extension, until Sept. 30, 2011, for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
National flood insurance is often needed for home buying and building on the Texas coast, so owners can purchase affordable insurance to protect their
property against flood risk.
It is critical that we have certainty for
both lenders and borrowers who rely on this program to insure residential and
commercial properties.
For more information visit
http://www.fema.gov/business/nfip/ and our page on
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Comment By NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (NAR)
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NAR is pleased that Congress passed and the president signed into law a one-year extension of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for before it expired, but still believes a longer extension and reforms are needed to provide fairness and continuity to the NFIP.
The NFIP authority was set to expire on Sept. 30 for the ninth time in two years; Congress has approved eight short-term extensions during this time. The new law, signed last night by President Obama, extends the program until Sept. 30, 2011.
“While this extension will help purchasers close their transactions for the next 12 months, these stop-gap measures have created great uncertainty in many real estate markets. That’s especially true when deadlines near because lenders have refused to lend based on promises and indications of extensions, which paralyze the market for indefinite periods. A long-term extension of five years will bring stability to the markets,” says NAR President Vicki Cox Golder.
Golder thanked Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and David Vitter (R-La.) for introducing the extension bill, as well as the leadership of both the House and Senate for expediting its passage.
“Now that Congress has given us some breathing room, we need to move ahead with long-term reauthorization reforms,” Golder said. “As the leading advocate for homeownership and housing issues, NAR also strongly supports strengthening the NFIP’s solvency through outreach and education programs that would help raise participation beyond the current 50 percent of home owners in federally designated flood areas. The increase in participants would boost funding for the NFIP, help property owners recover from flood losses, and decrease future federal assistance when uninsured properties flood and suffer loss.”
Adding types of coverage for living expenses, business interruption, and replacement cost of contents, as well as updating coverage limits — which haven’t been adjusted since 1994 — would also help increase participation.
NAR also favors extending and fully funding the pilot program to mitigate properties that have repeatedly suffered insured flood losses.
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