Important Information on National Flood Insurance Program

Important Information on National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization :

The National Flood Insurance Program expired on Sunday after the Senate failed to pass the latest temporary extension to the program. Senators are expected to take action on H.R. 4851, the Continuing Extension Act, when they return on April 12th. On March 2, 2010, Congress passed and the President signed H.R. 4691, which extended the NFIP through March 28, 2010. This extension only lasted until March 28, 2010, and has since expired.

Due to the expiration of this program,

Purchases – CANNOT close if the property is located in a flood zone.

Refinances – Property must have an existing flood insurance policy in effect, the policy must be of sufficient amount to provide the required coverage for the new loan amount, and that policy’s expiration date must be no sooner than 45 days from the closing date, and the policy must be paid current.

NFIP Reauthorization Guidance

Because the NFIP extension only lasted until March 28, 2010, you are to be guided by Bulletin W-09068, issued October 27, 2009, and titled “Recommendations/Guidance for Possible NFIP Authority Lapse and Hiatus” available at: (Download Here )

The document “Guidance for Policy Processing” (PDF 80KB, TXT 3KB) is additional guidance that may be useful to you in processing policies affected by the recent 2-day hiatus (March 1-2, 2010) during which the NFIP was not authorized.