Due to inclusion of language in an omnibus funding bill signed by President Obama on January 17, 2014, the Federal Emergency Management Agency recently released an advisory document which indicates that FEMA has stopped any planning to implement section 207 of the Biggert-Waters Act. Section 207 of BW12 instructed the National Flood Insurance Program to eliminate subsidies to a specific subset of NFIP policy holders: those policies on properties that built in compliance with minimum elevation requirements of a Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) after December 1974 but which now are constructed lower than the Base Flood Elevation of newer, updated FIRMs. Such properties have been “grandfathered” in that their rates were based on the old maps in effect when they were built instead of being based on the real flood risk as determined by the updated flood maps.
The new FEMA document, available here, indicates that FEMA will not implement section 207 of BW12 and end this grandfathering until at least 12 to 18 months after the beginning of fiscal year 2015.
