Congressman Robert Hurt (R-Virginia) released the following statement after attending a hearing held by the Financial Services’ Housing and Insurance Subcommittee entitled, “Opportunities for a Private and Competitive Sustainable Flood Insurance Market.”
“Our current government-provided flood insurance system has proven ineffective, inefficient, and costly to taxpayers. While Congress has been successful in modestly reforming the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), we still face a situation where Congress has chosen to solidify NFIP’s broken balance sheet with little hope for it returning from the red.
“The NFIP is $24 billion in debt and as it is currently structured and administered, there is potential for moral hazard. It is critical that this Subcommittee work to pursue significant reforms that will allow us to chart a new course for the NFIP and put the program on more sound financial footing. Hard-working taxpayers deserve a federal flood insurance program that is fiscally responsible and responsibly constructed. We must enhance the program’s integrity, make it self-sustaining, increase private market coverage, and reduce the risk to taxpayers across the nation.
“We cannot continue to settle for the status quo of a flood insurance system, one that crowds out the private sector in order to subsidize insurance premiums for a select few Americans at the expense of the rest of the country. I look forward to working with my colleagues on Housing and Insurance Subcommittee to reform the NFIP and establish a private, competitive, and sustainable flood insurance market.”
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