COASTAL INSURANCE RATES: NC-20 seeks flood action ATLANTIC BEACH — The chairman of NC-20 said Thursday flood insurance changes stand to wreck coastal economies and especially impact those with lower incomes. Tommy Thompson is chairman of the volunteer-run nonprofit organization that represents the interests of 20 coastal North Carolina counties. Speaking during the September meeting of the Morehead City Port Committee at the Channel Marker Restaurant, Mr. Thompson called the Biggert-Waters National Flood Insurance Program Reform Act the “hot button issue” now for NC-20. The organization is appealing to the state’s congressional delegation and Gov. Pat McCrory to join the fight against the reforms, which became law in 2012. “Politically, I don’t think we’ve been any weaker than we are right now,” Mr. Thompson said of the fight. NC-20 has long fought against premium increases for coastal property insurance, calling for reforms of North Carolina’s insurance laws and greater transparency in the ratemaking processes. A key provision of the National Flood Insurance Program reforms is to address the problem of repetitive-loss properties insured under the program, those properties considered “subsidized” by coverage rates that don’t reflect the true risk. Mr. Thompson said repetitive losses have always been part of the NFIP, but it wasn’t until 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans – much of which is below sea level – that the program’s loss ratios were upset. Before that, the NFIP was a federal program that worked, he said. “Now they’re trying to raise your insurance rates because of what happened down there,” Mr. Thompson told the group. He said lower-income residents of coastal regions and service members stationed and renting homes in coastal areas could be most impacted by the soaring flood insurance premiums expected for properties that have potential for repetitive flooding losses. “You’re going to see people losing their homes because their federally backed mortgages require flood insurance and if their flood insurance goes from $1,000 to $4,000 or whatever, people are not going to be able to afford it,” he said. Renters will be affected because landlords will pass on the increased costs by raising rents. Not all of the NFIP reforms are problematic, Mr. Thompson said. But the governors of coastal states and members of Congress from those states should unite to undo the parts of the bill that go too far, he said. Mr. Thompson said the situation could have been made worse if NC-20 hadn’t successfully championed a measure in 2012 that called for more scientific research before basing land-use policy on a theorized sea-level rise of 39 inches over the coming century. The standard would have defined more than 2,000 square miles of the coastal region as flood zone. Mr. Thompson said the projections were unsubstantiated by most long-term tide gauges, which showed no acceleration in sea-level rise during the past 20 years after only “slow, steady and linear” increases over the prior 100 years. If the 39-inch standard had been set in state regulatory and planning policy, more than 7,000 structures in Carteret County would have been redefined as below the flood level, he said. The impact would have totaled $7 billion in lost property values across the 20 coastal counties. “We’re tired of seeing the East get stomped on,” Mr. Thompson said. Mr. Thompson said NC-20 functions as a “defensive economic development organization” in its lobbying efforts. “We try to stop bad things from happening,” he said. “The climate-change gurus are out there in force. It’s a bunch of hooey.”
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:48:27 +0000
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