For those UK underwriters and loss adjusters watching the scenes of devastation caused by hurricane Irene and particularly flooding in states like Vermont, they will be glad that their insurance company does not have to pick up the bill.
They needn’t have worried though because in the United States Flood Risk is considered fundamental and cannot be covevered under a normal home insurance policy as such…as yet!
In fact all home insurance flood risks are the responsibility of each State to provide under a national scheme. In the United States, uniquely in the developed world, insuring houses against flood damage is the sole province of the federal government.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), was created in 1968 by Congress and is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is virtually the only place to get protection against the ever increasing disasters of flood and storm surge.
From an insurance point of view the program is the same as any other private-sector insurance program.
You pay the government a certain amount and when a flood happens, receive coverage for repairs and losses.
As of June 30, the program had nearly 5.6 million policies in force with a total insured value of $1.246 trillion. But from a fiscal standpoint FEMA does not manage the NFIP like a traditional insurer.
Most insurers use a measure of solvency that looks at their capital and reserves and their ability to pay claims. In particular, regulators require insurance companies to keep a statutory reserve of liquid assets to cover potential future losses. FEMA, on the other hand, has said it manages the NFIP to generate enough premiums to cover expenses and losses for an average loss year, rather than keeping capital for the long term.
In other words it does not keep enough reserves! And guess what? It’s run out of money!
Apparantely former agency officials admit it charges rates that dramatically underprice the risks faced. That is all well and good in a normal year and when business is good, but when a worse-than-average loss year happens, the consequences are disastrous.
Folowing the disatrous hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the NFIP was more or less insolvent, without the capacity to pay the huge volume of claims those hurricanes created. Congress reacted by increasing the NFIP’s borrowing ability from the U.S. Treasury more than 13-fold, to a level of nearly $21 billion. That debt burden is, by all accounts, unsustainable.
While Irene was no Katrina, it comes on top of serious Midwestern flooding that the program has already had to deal with this year. Some people believe NFIP will stretch its debt boundaries and may well end up needing more assistance. “It may be a little bit too soon to tell but it’s certainly not going to be a very good year for the NFIP and we’ve not finished the year yet,” said Robert Hartwig, an economist and the president of the Insurance Information Institute (III).
Hartwig said a private insurance market for flood coverage is absolutely possible, with plenty of insurers and reinsurers willing to get into the business – but only if the NFIP raises its rates and if insurers get assurances from state regulators that they will be able to do the same.
Insurance Blog wonders if given all the recent flood claims in the UK due to climate change and the pressure to build houses on floodplains, whether Flood Insurance will at some point become a fundamental risk in the UK for some homes?
The UK Government would be well advised to consult with construction companies, environmental scientists, climatologists, pressure groups and Insurance companies before we reach the crisis about to hit the US Treasury.
The solution is simple – do not solve the UK housing problem by building on floodplains or areas of geographical risk.
