Flood coverage drowning in debt

More than 5 million Americans receive flood insurance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency through a 50-year-old program that’s more than $20 billion in debt. Last year alone, it paid out $8.7 billion to policyholders, leading Congress to forgive $16 billion the program owed to the federal government. Yet despite the increasing costliness of covering floods as sea levels rise and hurricanes grow more severe, a bill to update FEMA’s insurance setup remains stalled in Congress. The 21st Century Flood Reform Act passed the House last November, and would limit coverage for high-risk properties, expand opportunities for private policies, and authorize financing to mitigate flood damage. But the bill has gone nowhere in the Senate. Most standard homeowner insurance policies don’t cover flood damage, and many homeowners in the Carolinas who could be affected by Hurricane Florence live outside a FEMA-designated high-risk flood zone, where flood insurance is required. In fact, earlier this year a study found that 40.8 million Americans are now exposed to serious flooding—roughly three times more than the government projected.