Flood Insurance Getting Harder to Find

From the Gulf oil spill and the floods in Arkansas and Oklahoma to the procession of hurricanes forecast for this year, the stage is set for major property damage in 2010.

Yet people looking to bolster their homeowners-insurance protection are likely to find that premiums are pricier, and extra coverage is harder to get, than ever before.

Government and private forecasters are predicting an active hurricane season, which runs now through Nov. 30. But insurers are selling fewer policies, raising premiums and reducing or dropping wind coverage as far north as Massachusetts.

Only one in five homes in a high-risk flood zone carries flood insurance—and new coverage is getting increasingly difficult to find. Congress hasn’t yet extended the National Flood Insurance Program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and provides the vast majority of flood policies in the U.S., after it expired on June 1. As a result, no new NFIP policies and renewals are being issued.

The House has passed an extension bill, and federal officials say they believe Congress will reauthorize the program eventually. New policies would likely be retroactive—but there is a 30-day waiting period after a policy is approved before it takes effect. So insurance experts urge homeowners who need flood insurance to apply now despite the hiatus.