We are finishing up our discussion of the Senate bill that would delay National Flood Insurance Program rate increases. The bill was tied to another insurance-related bill, the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act.
We are picking up where our Feb. 4 post left off and getting into the particulars of the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act. The U.S. Senate has tied the NARAB bill to the Homeowner Flood Insurance Availability Act, the bill that would postpone many flood insurance rate increases resulting from implementation of yet another law, the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners recently released a report that showed that Florida residents are paying the highest property insurance rates in the country. Data showed that the average homeowner was paying approximately $1,933per year in insurance premiums.
The former “King of Pop” Michael Jackson had fans throughout the world including in the Miami area. His untimely death came as a shock to many and so too likely did its cause. At the time of his death he was in the process of rehearsing for a concert tour that was being promoted by AEG Live LLC. As a part of the tour a non-appearance and concert cancellation insurance policy was purchased from Lloyd’s of London in June 2009.
We are back to discussing the bill passed by the U.S. Senate that will delay flood insurance rate hikes. The Senate combined the National Flood Insurance Program bill to another insurance bill, the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act. We talked about the flood insurance bill in our Jan. 31, 2014, post. Here, we will tackle the NARAB bill.
Seconds after we published our last post, the U.S. Senate passed the bill that included both the Homeowner Flood Insurance Availability Act and the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act. The flood insurance act will keep flood insurance subsidies in place for four years. During that time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency — the agency responsible for the National Flood Insurance Program — will complete an affordability study and perfect new flood maps.
The time has come, it seems, to talk of flood insurance rate hike delays, of months or years and agent licensing and economically distressed policyholders — and, as Lewis Carroll would add, whether pigs have wings. The debate over the rate hikes associated with implementation of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act continues in both the House and the Senate, and the White House has chimed in as well.
There have been a few developments on the flood insurance front, and we will discuss those in future posts. There is more to Florida than its waterfront homes and coastal flood plains, though. We are also a state with a sizeable population of retirees and older people. And that means we have other insurance concerns.
As we have said time and time again, insurance is all about risk. In some circles, “risk” is merely code for “gambling,” but the industry shies away from using the latter for some fairly obvious reasons. Imagine, for example, that your insurance agent asks you how much you’d like to bet that your teenager will crash the car or your neighbor will break a leg on your front steps. Risk is a much more palatable word.
Questions about insurance coverage often turn on small details. A decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Florida is in the 11th Circuit — illustrates the point and offers insight into just how complicated insurance litigation can be.
