[toomuchtodo]

As Americans, we're all on the hook for it.

https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/business/a-broke-and-brok...

"The government-run National Flood Insurance Program is, for now, virtually the only source of flood insurance for more than five million households in the United States. This hurricane season, as tens of thousands of Americans seek compensation for storm-inflicted water damage, they face a problem: The flood insurance program is broke and broken.

The program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been in the red since Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005. It still has more than a thousand disputed claims left over from Sandy. And in October, it exhausted its $30 billion borrowing capacity and had to get a bailout just to keep paying current claims."

[mobilefriendly]

And this is why American coasts are grossly over-developed-- the government undercuts private insurers who would charge a much higher market price.

[chaz]

NPR Planet Money did an episode on this: "The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is $30 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury. If it were a private company, it would be bankrupt. And instead of preventing risky behavior, the NFIP may be encouraging it. Among the NFIP's many problems are houses that flood again and again and again. Throughout the program's history, one percent of homes have been responsible for more than 25 percent of the claims. The NFIP can't drop these homes."

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/29/554603161/epis...