NEW ORLEANS — Most people in Louisiana will soon have to pay more for flood insurance, and lawmakers fear new policies will be exponentially higher, making flood insurance unaffordable for many people.
Under a program known as Risk Rating 2.0, FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program says it's working to make costs more fair for those who have insurance.
There are 495,900 flood-insurance policies in Louisiana. Seventy percent of those could see policies increase up to $120 per year.
Another 10 percent could see increases of more than $240 a year. FEMA notes that 20 percent of people will see decreases.
Changes to existing policies would not take effect until April 1st next year, but new policies would be subject to the new rules Friday.
Lawmakers are asking FEMA to delay that.
Thirty-eight members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter calling for that delay.
Louisiana senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy were among eight U.S. senators who wrote a similar letter to FEMA's administrator warning that 900,000 people may drop their protection if these changes during the next decade as costs increase.
“These are working families who are trying to make ends meet, and suddenly they're no longer able to protect themselves,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told reporters Thursday during a conference call. “FEMA is not being upfront about these costs.”
U.S. representatives Steve Scalise and Garret Graves also wrote to FEMA, saying that a homeowner in Larose, in hard-hit Lafourche Parish, recently got a quote for a new flood-insurance policy that ballooned from $572 if it went into effect today to $5,531 if it went into effect after the changes kick in.
In a statement earlier this month about the new plan, a National Flood Insurance Program's official said the “new rating methodology is long overdue since it hasn't been updated in more than 40 years.
“Now is the right time to modernize how risk is identified, priced and communicated,” David Maurstad, the NFIP’s senior executive said.
Meanwhile, a FEMA spokesperson on Thursday said the senators' comments are “misleading and are taken out of context. Risk Rating 2.0 will result in a net increase in the number of people who purchase flood insurance in the next 10 years.”
Lawmakers said they aren't against making changes, they just don't want this particular package.
“The administration has the power to delay this. This is an executive decision, if you will, through an executive agency,” Cassidy said. “So, of course, my personal plea is that the president would tell FEMA not to proceed with Risk Rating 2.0, but to look for alternatives.”