The American Bankers Association today urged lawmakers to support legislation to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program through the end of next year. In a letter to House Financial Services Committee leaders, the association said reauthorization continues to be a high priority for banks because stability in the NFIP is essential to ensuring that borrowers in flood prone areas can access the insurance needed to protect their properties and the collateral securing their mortgage loans.
ABA also urged Congress to consider reauthorizing the NFIP on a longer-term basis. “The ongoing series of short-term extensions of program authority—and the potential for lapses in authority—destabilize the mortgage process,” the association said. “As ABA has stated previously, there is a growing focus by banks and regulators to ensure that physical risks are adequately addressed. The availability of flood insurance, and particularly of the NFIP, is an essential element of those efforts and long-term reauthorization of the program is vital to a coordinated approach to ensuring resiliency of the housing finance system and to the continued ability of low-and moderate-income borrowers to access mortgage credit.”
