MOST of us have the sense not to build on a flood-plain or where there's regular hurricane/tropical storm/ etc exposure.

For the rest, stay in your oh-so-trendy homes as you're washed away. Think of it as Evolution in Action. . . (evil grin)

Yep the one thing they can agree on how to give themselves and their friends more $.

I live in a coastal community. Not affected personally. Many people who are affected live miles from the ocean and have never had damage done to their homes in any storm. One of those storms was the perfect storm which a book was written about. Also FEMAS formula for who is in a flood plain is based on complete fantasy from what I understand.

I don't have a house so I have no clue.

Is there similar cheap subsidized insurance for:

earthquakes hazards in a tectonic zone (LA)
fire hazards in brush country or in the hills above LA?
tornado insurance in tornado alley?

To what extent do us apartment dwellers benefit from or are forced to pay for these subsidies?

Oh you guys. They need their subsidized housing to go along with their subsidized private planes.

Well one of the other pieces of bull pulled off in Katrina was the insurance claiming that the house five miles from the beach, and 75 feet up a hill was flood damage and the fact that the roof was ripped off had not caused any of the water damage.

In addition, a broken water/sewer pipe that breaks and backs up into house is technically flood damage.

So frankly I think all sides are fraudulent.

This is exactly why I laugh at all the partisan hyperbole.

Getting people to hate "the other side" while they're conspiring together to benefit themselves and their wealthy contributors.

Go ahead, scream at the commie symp liberal socialists, rage at the Tea Partiers subverted by the Koch brothers, fume at the RINOs as they shut down the very government they were elected to improve.

They're all the same guys underneath.

Of course, the real question: Why is the government offering flood insurance?

If you want to build your McMansion on the beach, go find a private insurance company. If you can't find private insurance, maybe you should build somewhere else.

Jerry, the answer to your first set of questions is "no"; there is no government-subsidized insurance for any of those hazards. I've got a relative in the insurance business and he tells me that covering storm damager is actually only a small part of my premium; he says that most of his claims are for burst piples and criminal acts (break-ins, scrappers and vandals).

The answer to your second question is harder to say. Of course, apartment buildings need insurance too, and ones built in flood plains are eligible for the flood insurarance. However, most cities won't allow new apartment complexes to be built in flood plains, so the things that are covered wind up being mostly mom-and-pop things where somebody rents out their basement, or half of a duplex, or some such.

Eat the rich. Flood them out of their homes.

Incidentally, this bill they are trying to roll back shows the efficacy of simply eliminating the program, not "reforming" it or making it more expensive. Just drop this big-government boondoggle for the wealthy and let free markets figure it out.

By the way, shouldn't these rising rates affect all 100% of flood insurance holders, or do some of them not get subsidies?

mpetrie, I don't know the answer to your question for sure, but I think it applies to all holders of such insurance. People who don't live in 100-year-flood zone may not notice since their premiums are very low anyway. And most people who don't live in or near a flood zone don't bother with this insurance.

When I was a kid, it was the poor people who lived near the water, the fisher- and oystermen. In my town, if you lived near the beach, you were from the wrong side of the tracks. I remember, when I was a kid, my dad and one of his friends worked a second job, rewiring a lot the beach cottages, that were only summer homes then, as more and more people decided to live there year-round. I remember during one hurricane, might have been Gloria, that peoples' homes and streets were so flooded they were getting around in rowboats. The town installed warning systems that would alert people when there was stormy weather or a hurricane was coming. We lived at the top of a hill about 3 blocks from the Long Island sound, and every time that alarm went off, and the recording told people to "move your vehicle to higher ground", everyone would park on our street, and the nearby ones, and then go back to their homes! People got flooded, they dealt with it and that was that.
It's only been in the last 40 years or so that all these wealthy people decided they want to live seaside. They tore down the cottages and put up these huge monstrosities, and as of Hurricane Sandy, you want to build a house on the shoreline, you have to have it raised. Want flood insurance and your house is still at sea level? You have to raise it, I think it's now 8 - 12 feet. Might be 15 feet in some places. That costs some serious coin. It's crazy. You want to live there now, you can damn well pay for your own frakkin' insurance.