CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Privatization and Climate Risk Will Expand the US Flood Insurance Gap

Flooding of the Pudding River, Willamette Valley, Oregon. Photo:Jeffrey St. Clair.

A Moody’s white paper released last week highlights growing concerns about flood insurance protection gaps  — apprehensions amplified by a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report proposing to make insurance even more unaffordable.

The report points out that the number of homeowners who are inadequately covered is much larger than believed due to outdated FEMA flood maps and a reliance on past data to predict future risk. Moody’s looks at what would happen county-by-county in three simulated scenarios to determine the amount of uninsured damage: a “1-in-100-year” (1 percent probability) flood scenario, a “1-in-500-year” flood, and a “1-in-100-year flood” in an intermediate-emissions scenario by 2050.

In the first scenario, some counties in coastal states such as Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas would face the worst damage, around $5 billion, with the uninsured damage at $375 billion nationwide. In the second scenario, rivers would overflow and heavy rains would seep into neighborhoods that normally don’t experience flooding, expanding damage beyond the coast into 11 more states, including Pennsylvania and Illinois. Under this scenario, uninsured........

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