05.09.14

Hoeven: FEMA to Bill Flood Insurance Premiums at Pre-Biggert-Waters Rates

Agency Will Also Provide Refunds in the Fall

WASHINGTON – Following a meeting this week with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Associate Manager Dave Miller, Senator John Hoeven said the agency will bill flood insurance premiums this year at pre-Biggert-Waters rates until it can fully implement the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014, which Hoeven cosponsored and pushed to pass.

The new legislation, which passed in March, was required to prevent FEMA from imposing steep rate hikes it said were necessary to meet some of the requirements in the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. The new flood insurance bill, however, will keep premiums affordable for millions of Americans when implemented.

FEMA indicated further that it will provide refunds this fall to homeowners that have already paid the higher premium rates.

“It will take FEMA time to develop the new, lower rate tables required under the Flood Insurance Affordability Act, but in the meantime, the agency has taken a good step toward sparing homeowners and businesses the burden of the higher rates until they can complete implementation of the law,” Hoeven said.

The meeting came in response to an April letter that Senators Hoeven, David Vitter (R-La.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) sent to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate requesting that FEMA officials meet with the Senators to discuss implementation of the flood insurance reform law and to explain why property owners continued to be charged higher flood insurance rates, despite passage of the new law to protect homeowners from such unaffordable premium costs.