Flood Insurance Issues in Fort Bend County
Homeowners will be required to obtain flood insurance for their property and pay significantly more in premiums, and their property values may decrease if the federal government implements the changes it is considering.
Fort Bend County property owners with National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) homeowners’ flood insurance may see an increase in their premiums from an average annual $688 to over $1,100. Property owners in some parts of the country may see NFIP premiums increase as much as $4-5,000. NFIP is the most prominent flood insurance provider for homeowners in the county, which, for the most part, is protected by levees and flood mitigation systems for severe flooding.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has re-evaluated flooding risks in all areas through its Risk Rating 2.0 (RR2.0). FEMA is considering changes to its policies that could draw most of Fort Bend County into Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs), which will require property owners to acquire flood insurance from either NFIP or private insurance companies. FEMA has a $20 Billion deficit and is under directives from federal legislators to avoid future losses. The cost of homeownership in our county could increase significantly, and correspondingly, the value of your home will decrease.
I am working with others to avoid those increases and prevent any future increases.
We need your help.
I am working with the Fort Bend Economic Development Council, the Cities of Missouri City and Sugar Land, and 15 of the 19 special districts that operate levees in Fort Bend County, and we have engaged consultants to assist us in working with FEMA and the U. S. Corps of Engineers to:
- Lower flood insurance rates for our property owners;
- Ensure NFIP recognition of the top-tier flood mitigation in our community, including policyholder discounts;
- Prevent mandatory flood insurance purchase for properties behind Federally accredited levees and flood mitigation systems built to the current 100-year base flood elevation standard;
- Insist on full FEMA disclosure and explanation of all charges and discounts before policy issuance;
- Require FEMA transparency and integrity in the development of premiums and
- Provide policyholders with an objective, transparent, and efficient premium appeals process.
You can help by adding your name to the attached PETITION, asking for equal and fair treatment. The PETITION will be sent to FEMA, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, our U.S. Senators, and our Congressional Delegation insisting that the cost of flood insurance reflects the actual risk of flooding.
Thank you for any support you can provide.
Andy Meyers
Fort Bend County Commissioner Pct. 3
FORT BEND COUNTY, TEXAS Flood Mitigation Efforts And National Flood Insurance Program
We, the undersigned residents of Fort Bend County, Texas, are doing our part to protect our homes, businesses and families by preparing for extreme rain events and annual hurricane seasons through hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and year-round operations designed to prevent as well as mitigate flooding impacts.
The total amount of property and structures protected by the 99 miles of levees in Fort Bend County exceeds $14 billion. In addition, over 140,000 Fort Bend County residents live behind a levee, accounting for 15% of the total population. Our robust levee systems, together with accurate risk communication and reliable operations and maintenance before, during, and after flood events, are critical to community resilience.
As our work continues, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“USACE”) are undertaking efforts that have raised concerns, so we hereby petition the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. Federal government to:
- Fully recognize in Federal programs, including FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps), the substantial and ongoing financial investments made by Fort Bend County residents through Special Districts (i.e., Levee Improvement Districts (“LIDs”) and Municipal Utility Districts (“MUDs”)) for flood mitigation built entirely with local (no Federal) funds;
- Ensure FEMA, in keeping with 42 U.S.C. § 4024 requiring coordination with other programs, begins to meaningfully “consult with … State and local agencies having responsibilities for flood control, flood forecasting, or flood damage prevention, to assure that the programs of such agencies and the flood insurance program authorized under this chapter are mutually consistent.”;
- Request that USACE and FEMA work with Fort Bend County and the Special Districts to ensure that full, correct, and up-to-date information about our levees is housed in the National Levee Database and that this best available information is used to develop risk assessments for our levee systems and affected areas, and accurately reflected in the calculations used by the concerned agencies;
- Have the FEMA-managed NFIP validate and recognize the top-tier flood mitigation approaches in place across our community and make verifiable improvements under the new NFIP Risk Rating 2.0 or its successor program, including maximizing eligible community or policyholder discounts;
- Request full transparency from FEMA through disclosure of its risk evaluation criteria, including underlying data and associated confidence intervals, as the agency seeks to base flood insurance premium rates on risk factors to individual properties and provide policyholders timely detailed cost breakdowns so that as consumers they can make informed decisions based on individual needs before insurance purchase;
- Have FEMA fully disclose and explain how NFIP premiums are calculated, including clarifying currently inexplicable variances in property rates to customers within the same levee systems, as well as why policyholders protected by accredited levees are often made to pay higher premiums than policyholders not protected by such levees;
- Adequately address NFIP attrition and insolvency under Risk Rating 2.0, which has already experienced the loss of over 150,000 flood insurance policies since it was instituted and faces an expected loss of an additional 1 million policyholders over the next 10 years, according to FEMA projections;
- Not require the unsupported and uneconomic purchase of mandatory flood insurance for properties protected by federally accredited levees and flood mitigation systems built to the current 100-year base flood elevation standard; and,
- Provide policyholders with an objective, fully transparent, and efficient premium appeals process.
In addition to copies of this petition being provided to FEMA and USACE, members of Fort Bend County’s Congressional Delegation are also being provided copies to inform them and to ask for their assistance.