http://www.charlotteobserver.com/20...surance-law-raises-premiums.html#.UsjKdStEMs4 The loudest support for action to stall the insurance changes has come from New Jersey, Louisiana and other states where the impacts are showing up more quickly than in North Carolina. In states where flood insurance rate maps were updated last year, homeowners quickly learned what their new rates would be. The picture for most policyholders in North Carolina will become clearer as new flood maps start rolling out this spring. The Wests pay just $850 a year for their flood coverage now, thanks to generous taxpayer subsidies that are being phased out under the new law. The new rate will be determined partly by the upcoming flood map for New Hanover County and by a surveyor’s elevation certificate required under the new law. One coastal policy expert reckons that the new premium for the Wests’ cottage could reach as high as $21,000. “We had two contracts, and both of them crashed because of this uncertainty,” Sybil West said. “I’m alarmed because I think this law is going to cause problems all across the coastal United States. It puts us in a bind, and it puts buyers in a bind. “I’m not opposed to paying more” for flood insurance, West said. “If people live on the beach, they need to pay for that. But I think nobody realizes what these subsidies have been. This is an education.”
Congress seems to be planning to continue the subsidy for flood insurance regardless of the cost to taxpayers. http://theadvocate.com/home/8624297-125/us-senate-oks-flood-insurance#.UyLzo6Sa5Jg.email The proposal also includes a $25 surcharge on all flood insurance policies for primary residents and about $250 for business properties and vacation homes. The money would go into a fund that would help pay claims. It would produce about $1 billion in five years and $2.3 billion in ten years. Congress has been subsidizing flood insurance policies for homeowners since the late 1960s. The subsidies made it more affordable for people to move into coastal areas and build homes near large bodies of water without having to pay the full — and often prohibitive — cost of flood insurance premiums. The problem was that as the program grew, eventually subsidizing premiums for more than 5 million policies, the National Flood Insurance Program deficit grew to more than $25 billion. To get a handle on that deficit, the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 installed many provisions aimed at financially stabilizing the federal flood insurance program.
