The House finally came to its senses last week and amended the 2012 Biggert-Waters act by scaling back flood insurance rate increases. This is not only good news for longtime homeowners in coastal areas but also will help revive the real estate market which made some homes too expensive due to substantial flood rate increases. Amongst the positive changes are that new homeowners will not have to immediately pay full rates and those long time residents holding existing policies will see more gradual increases.

An editorial written in the Washington Post titled “Reforms should tackle flood and moral hazard” and reprinted in the St. Petersburg Times (2/4/2014) attempts to make a case that the U.S. House of Representatives should not follow their colleagues in the U.S. Senate and repeal the dastardly Biggert-Waters 2012 “Flood Reform” act. No need to go into a lengthy accounting on what’s in this piece of legislation and what it’s doing to still recovering homeowners. Examples of their pending financial ruin are constantly in the press and ubiquitous across the Internet.

Last evening we attended the annual neighborhood holiday party which normally is a time of good cheer and an opportunity to visit with our neighbors to catch-up on their families and community news. This year was a little different. The one conversation everyone was having was the unconceivable flood premiums hitting folk’s mailboxes as a result of the Biggert-Waters 2012 Flood Reform Act.  Our street is basically an island with water on all four sides. So everyone is affected as are many other communities across Florida including many non-water front homes in flood zones.  Yep, flood insurance and what the federal government has done to all the folks across the nation that are required to have flood insurance is one hot topic.

Q. The city where we live experienced a ten inch water main break that flooded our basement with 4 ft. of water. We hired a public adjuster 10 days ago. Now they are backing out saying there are limitations to what they can do. Should we go with the city's insurance? Should we find out what limitations there are with our homeowners policy?