Flood Insurance: Congressional Action Could Help Increase Coverage for At-Risk Properties

Filed 1h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Unknown photographer · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A GAO report finds 86 percent of high-risk properties lacked National Flood Insurance Program coverage as of April 2026, while NFIP policies fell from 5.5 million in 2010 to 4.5 million in 2026, with private insurance only partly filling the gap.

The mandatory purchase requirement, tied to FEMA flood maps, drives most coverage that does exist, but those maps largely miss heavy-rainfall risk, leaving about 13 million high-risk properties outside the zones that trigger the requirement.

GAO recommends Congress update the mandatory-purchase criteria, require public flood-risk disclosure, mandate insurance quotes before mortgage closing, and raise NFIP coverage limits.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A map that misses most of the rain isn't a map, it's a guess with a government seal on it. Homeowners keep buying houses on the strength of paperwork that was never built to catch the kind of storm that actually shows up at the door these days. Congress has the recommendations sitting right there; the only mystery is how long the shelf life on inaction turns out to be.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Decline · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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