Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will take this occasion to make a couple of remarks about the content of this amendment. This amendment is about a predatory practice that is involved in the flood insurance world, and that predatory practice occurs when a servicer of mortgages places flood insurance on a property--be it a home or a business. They sometimes arrange a very expensive policy to be placed on the property. The reason they do this is that the insurer--the insurance company that has prepared the policy--is charging many times the market rate, but in exchange they pay the servicer a large bonus. We remember how bonuses in the subprime world were used to steer families from prime mortgages into subprime mortgages. In this case the bonus is being paid to the servicer so the servicer will steer the family into an expensive insurance policy rather than a fair market rate policy. My amendment takes a very simple approach and says that these bonus payments or incentive payments--or whatever name you would like to give to them--from the insurer to the servicer in order to utilize their very expensive, above market rate product rather than a fair market rate product will not be allowed. That eliminates this conflict of interest and will enable the servicer to provide a fair service of placing flood insurance on a property if it is required under the terms of the mortgage, but not to do so in a predatory manner.…”