Flood Insurance Affordability

People living in Miami are in the face of danger, and for the most part they are not aware of it. Due to high population, Miami is the fourth largest city to become affected by sea level rise. (Ankum et al.) In the next 32-50 years, sea level is expected to rise by as much as two feet. (Ankum et al.) This two-foot rise will have detrimental effects on the urban settings of Miami. The amount of soil erosion that is undergoing at our beaches will greatly increase if a two-foot rise occurs. At a four-foot rise, road connectivity would begin to become affected. At a six-foot rise, Southern Florida would no longer be habitable as it would, for the most part, be underwater. Not much is being invested in mitigation efforts, most of what is being done are short term solutions. Instead of coming up with ideas to prevent and try to slow down the effects of climate change on our environment, we are focusing on ideas such as building up a sea wall, relocating power plants, and redesigning structures.

Many communities are suffering due to coastal erosion. One example is the village of Cocodrie, LA in Terrebonne Parish. This village’s small population and its 220 residential and commercial buildings are surrounded by marshes. In Cocodrie, there is no barrier against hurricanes. Local marinas play host to recreational and commercial fishing, and The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium is located in Cocodrie. This facility of around 100,000 square ft houses laboratories, classrooms, and a research center. Infrastructure that will be affected by coastal erosion includes paved highway, dirt roads, a bridge, water supply systems, and natural gas lines. By 2050, Cocodrie will be surrounded by open water as the marshlands around the village give way to rising sea levels. Another community affected by this issue is Yscloskey, LA in St. Bernard Parish. The most important part of the economy here is fishing, and highways link the parish to New Orleans fishing communities. The Yscloskey area lies outside of the protective levees and is quite vulnerable to storms. Though losses in Yscloskey are not predicted to be as great as those in Cocodrie, a 16 percent loss by 2050 leaves the infrastructure of Yscloskey even more vulnerable (Coast 2050, 1998, p. 64-66). Local residents in these areas are watching the land disappear along with the beachfronts and Cyprus swamps that were on that land (Marshall, 2014).

From the populus beaches in Miami, Florida, ranging to the snowy ski slopes of Wyoming, climate change is transforming the real estate market. It is thought that climate change is mostly the product of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases being released into the air, but many Americans are unaware that if the trend with climate change continues, the financial landscape of real estate will drastically be affected. Insurance cost will increase, the retail value of homes will decrease, and the overall appeal of famous vacation areas will decline if global warming continues to impact the country. Sea levels are rising, hurricanes are destroying entire cities, and heat waves are affecting areas all over the world due to climate change. These

Fundamentally, a community can accumulate points by completion of various hazard mitigating activities to include public information, mapping and regulations, flood damage reduction, and flood preparedness (FEMA, 2017). Below is a table to illustrate these levels. Now, that we have a basic knowledge of the NFIP let’s discuss its benefits. According to FEMA (2012), the NFIP enables policyholders to have coverage up to 250,000 to 100,000, depending on whether the property is residential or commercial. Moreover, the NFIP enables property owners to file a claim without paying back whether the flood becomes a presidentially declared disaster or not whereas disaster assistance requires payback and the disaster to be presidentially declared (p. 2). Therefore, we can see the program has substantial benefits to those who choose to participate. However, there are significant program sustainability issues. First, repetitive flood loss is something which has plagued the sustainability of the NFIP. Since the inception of the NFIP in 1968, approximately 30,000 properties have been deemed severe repetitive loss properties (10 or more losses), costing the program 5.5 billion dollars (Eastman, 2016). Therefore, we can see those who have been impacted by floods continue to be impacted by floods. Secondly, as mentioned above, lack of

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, almost 40% of the population lives in high population-dense coastal areas. Around the world, eight of the world’s ten largest cities are situated near a coast, with about 250 million people living by a coast line less than 5 feet above sea level. It is projected that all of these people will be directly affected in some way by seawater rising in the future (Siegert, 2017). For the county of Orleans Parish, the rapid loss of coastal land is not a future scenario, but a current reality. Due to our unique geography, Louisiana loses about 16 square miles a year; the rapid erosion of Louisiana’s cost is only expected to accelerate over time. (Wernick, 2014).

Initially,it involves only constructing flood control works such as dams, seawalls and providing disaster relief to flood victims only. High risk and seasonal nature are the reasons for which insurance companies were not able to provide flood insurance coverage.So,U.S congress created the NFIP in order to reduce flood losses and increase cost of disaster relief to the taxpayers.

I am from Charlotte, NC where we receive an average amount of rain, nothing too crazy. Coming to school in Norfolk I was first introduced to what flooding actually was. It was beautiful day prior, and suddenly it began pouring down raining. In about 10 minutes the streets were flooded. Staff had to take students to the other side of campus in their own cars. The underpasses were filled with so much water, that no cars could get through. Later on that was when I was informed that Norfolk is below sea level causing it to flood when it rains. Coming from a city where it doesn’t flood, to a city that floods was a shock. Through research I found of what Costal Resilience was, and how other cities are dealing with the same problems the Tidewater District is dealing with. If cities could be better prepared in times of hazardous events, less money would be lost and people wouldn’t relocate.

The attributes are Homes, Wetlands, Beaches, Seawalls, and the unavoidable cost to households associated with the implementation of the policy. The attributes’ levels within the experimental design, shown in Table 2, are based on feasible protection outcomes identified by Coastal Resilience approach and calculations made by scientists. A fractional factorial experimental design was constructed based on a D-efficiency criterion (Rose and Bliemer, 2009) for main effects and selected two-way interactions, resulting in 72 profiles blocked in 24 booklets. Each respondent was presented with three different voting questions and was instructed to treat them as separate and independent votes. A statement highlighting consequentiality is included, and subjects are reminded to consider budget constraints when voting (Carson and Groves, 2007). Homes represents the number of homes in the town that are expected to be flooded in a Category 3 storm in the mid-2020s. Wetlands and Beaches represent the acreage of wetlands and beaches that are expected to be lost due to flooding and erosion in a Category 3 storm by the mid-2020s. Seawalls describes the mileage of armored coastline by mid-2020s. Choice scenarios describe the changes in each of these attributes in relative terms with regard to the upper and lower base conditions. For example, the number of homes expected to be flooded is represented as

Harvey flooded 800 wastewater treatment facilities and 13 Superfund sites. That spread sewage and toxic chemicals into the flooded areas. At least $30 billion worth of property has been affected by flooding from Hurricane Harvey just in parts of Texas’ Harris and Galveston counties, a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and property data shows. According to many articles on the insurance coverage of all the property damaged only 40% of that total may be covered by insurance and of that the federal government will bear the biggest liability. That means families with flooded basements, soaked furniture and water-damaged walls will have to dig deep into their pockets or take on more debt to fix up their homes unless they have some form of flood insurance. In my opinion just few hundred dollars paid on a policy every moth can save thousands lost to a flood. Here are some advantages: NFIP policy holders can choose their amount of coverage. The maximum for residential units is $250,000 in building coverage and $100,000 in contents coverage. For the NFIP maximum is $500,000 actual cash value coverage with no

Nobody knows when floods happen. These are natural disasters that can just strike when we least expect it. We may live in deserts or atop a mountain and still experience flooding.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was established to provide government subsidized flood insurance and is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the United States has experienced a series of major flood events that has required the NFIP to borrow from the U.S. Department of Treasury. The program is currently $24 billion in debt (Landers, 2014, p. 16). There are a number of areas where the NFIP has been reviewed and already reformed to help reduce costs like reducing administrative costs to manage the program. However, more significant reform is needed to be able to maintain and fund this program. A combination of changes will provide the best results. One direction is to increase the funding base for the program by increasing participation and increasing premiums. Another option is to reduce the cost of the program by shifting some burden to private insurers. In order to become and remain financially solvent, the National Flood Insurance Program needs to be reformed: the NFIP should remain a government administered program with a reform focused on increasing program participation through education and enforcement, and adjusting premiums to reflect actual risks; the NFIP should incorporate privatization through a public-private partnership with insurance companies to provide catastrophic insurance coverage.

Recent flooding in the state of South Carolina has highlighted that there is an on-going issue with flooding that is affecting the state. Specifically, this paper will attempt to address the contributors and effects of coastal flooding on the state with an emphasis on the coastal cities, as well as solutions that have been proposed to mitigate the effects of flooding. Flooding causes loss of life, loss of property, and causes millions of dollars in funds to be spent on restoration and reconstruction. While the historic flooding in the state had devastating effects on the interior of the state, the coastal cities were also flooded. However, coastal cities, such as Charleston, have been seeing flooding in the city for many years due to many

Many homeowners feel that their house and property will always be protected as long as the annual insurance premiums are paid on time and standard coverage is in place. However, there is a big misconception when it comes to repairs and replacement costs for a dwelling that has suffered water damage due to flooding. Homeowners with properties located within a floodplain typically must purchase additional flood insurance in order to be protected from a severe loss that could leave a household in financial ruin and without a place to live.

Nearly $66 billion of housing alone has been built since the Great Recession of 2008. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being sunk into brand new commercial buildings with waterfront views. In an incredible display of opulence, dozens of floating building projects, ranging from luxury housing to hospitals and schools, have been proposed and are in various stages of construction. Engaging in this sort of construction in areas that will soon enough become just more seabed is foolish at best. Southern Florida, and especially the state government, is in a state of denial, forging ahead with construction and only concerned with short term profits, rather than long term dangers. However, smaller local governments seem to be more aware of the danger, taking inspiration from the Dutch and applying their top-notch water management skills to the Floridian situation in an attempt to protect their homes and livelihoods. Despite these efforts, it may be too late for Florida, as more and more financial experts begin advocating for the liquidation and removal of assets from the Sunshine

Today, sea levels are rising from the effects of global warming. There are two main causes of the rise of sea levels are thermal expansion and the increase of the melting of land-based ice (US Department of Commerce, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2008). Humans burning coal and oil and cutting down tropical forests can have increased atmospheric concentrations. Causing the earth’s temperature to rise, glaciers and ice sheets to melt, thermal expansion to appear, and sea levels to rise (Causes of Sea Level Rise: What the Science Tells Us, 2013). Due to rising sea levels, 13.1 million Americans must be displaced from their homes along the coast. Since 1880, the planet has warmed by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit