In New Orleans this morning a lawsuit seeking transparency of FEMA’s flood insurance rates will be heard. Legal action was filed after multiple failed inquiries into how FEMA calculates Risk Rating 2.0 flood insurance rates for property owners.
“And what this lawsuit is all about is the resistance that FEMA has had to reveal what they’re basing under Risk Rating 2.0 individual properties,” said State Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon.
Donelon said under the previous guidelines, rates were based upon elevation, certified levees, pumping capacity, and things that were encouraged for decades back to 1965. It was in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy that private companies stopped offering flood insurance. Donelon said rates before Risk Rating 2.0 were transparent.
“Based upon how many steps were taken by the homeowner to elevate or by the community to protect with flood improvements, pumping station improvements, etc.” said Donelon.
Donelon said billions were spent by both the federal and local governments to accommodate the previous requirements and improve flood resistance by communities.
Now he said rates are supposedly based on the so-called risk of your individual home, separate and apart, priced individually.
As for if Donelon believes Attorney General Jeff Landry, who’s leading the lawsuit against the federal government will be successful…
“It really is a very difficult standard to challenge and to overcome the federal government on a federal program but all we can do is try,” said Donelon.
In addition to Louisiana, nine other states, as well as 43 parishes, 12 levee boards, and two municipalities are suing FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration declaring the new rating system for setting flood insurance premiums unlawful.
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