Email Map Update 5/13/2016

Email Map Update 5/13/2016

Once again, the Marshfield Citizens Coastal Coalition (MCCC) would like to thank those who attended and supported our Flood Insurance Summit this past April. Based on attendance, discussion with attendees and the attendee evaluations, the Flood Insurance Summit was an overwhelming success, with over 400 attendees spanning two days and CE credits offered for insurance agents. The NFIP, in its current state, is a very complicated program and all insurance professionals (insurance and real estate agents, brokers, underwriters, etc.) need a better understanding of the rules in order to know how to assist their clients.  Collectively, we all need to work together to improve the program as we develop our message for the NFIP reform. The attendance of homeowners, professionals and leaders in each stakeholder industry provided a great environment for an in depth discussion on many levels of the NFIP and flood insurance. We intend to have many follow up discussions over the course of this year on the items that were discussed.

 

To take our Summit survey: http://www.massachusettscoastalcoalition.org/?page_id=223

 

To download the presentations from the Summit: http://www.carolinafloodsolutions.com/resources/

 

To see pictures from the Summit: http://www.massachusettscoastalcoalition.org/?page_id=223

 

COMMUNITIES RECEIVE LETTER OF FINAL DETERMINATION

Marshfield, Scituate, and Duxbury received the Letter of Final Determination, or LFD on May 4th, meaning the communities must approve the FIRMs at a Town Meeting sometime before the beginning of November. There has been a lot of confusion around this, so below are some quick items to keep in mind:

  • The FIRMs are NOT effective until the date listed on the LFD. This date is on or around November 4 You have until this date to buy the Preferred Risk Policy or other flood insurance and make changes to your structure to be grandfathered to the current maps
  • The community must adopt the maps by a two thirds majority at town meeting this fall
  • It is IMPERATIVE that the community adopts the FIRMs. While we do not all agree on the maps, if we do not adopt the FIRMs, homeowners will lose the ability to purchase Federally backed flood insurance and we will lose out on some disaster assistance

While some may think not voting in the flood maps may somehow be sticking it to the government, or that the private market will pick up the slack, this is not the case. The NFIP is a voluntary program, and not participating is totally up to the community. Furthermore, not all banks accept all private market flood insurance, and private market flood insurance will not take on all structures as an insurable risk. While the U.S. House of Representative has voted on a bill for banks to recognize private flood the same as the NFIP, the Senate must now vote on the bill. Even if the bill is passed, private flood can still choose which structures to insure. We support private market flood insurance, but it is not and cannot be right for everyone.

 

We will be issuing more information on map readings and information about insurance in the coming weeks and months.

 

See the latest maps here: http://www.marshfieldcoastalcoalition.org/?page_id=119

 

CLEAR COMMUNICATION

The Marshfield Citizens Coastal Coalition is working on getting information out about the next part of flood reform under the Homeowners Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 (HFIAA). Clear communication states that FEMA will be asking insured’s to prove certain grandfathering provisions on their policy.   We will have more on this, and an official memo, in the coming weeks.

 

NATIONAL FLOOD CONFERECE

Chair Joe Rossi will be in Washington D.C. this coming week for the National Flood Conference. We will be issuing an email after for follow up on items learned at the conference. We will also be traveling to New Orleans afterwards for meetings with the Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance (CSFI)