On the recordMarch 12, 2013
I would love to express my appreciation to my original cosponsors of this bill, chair emeritus, House Financial Service Committee Representative Spencer Bachus, for his support, and my other cosponsor and friend on the committee, Representative Hinojosa. I believe that a community-based flood insurance option may eventually provide a cost-saving option for communities within the larger framework of the overall National Flood Insurance Program. The potential for savings and community empowerment certainly merits a study. Now, as Mr. Luetkemeyer has indicated, this bipartisan bill has passed in various forms, the latest being in the 112th Congress, as H.R. 6186 last September, 364-11, so this is nothing new; and I would submit that we should support it here today. This approach has merit because its potential lower rates are due to the streamlined underwriting, increased participation, the critical mass of citizens that are involved, and incentives for the community to mitigate future flood risk. There's also an option of providing lower- income households the use of vouchers to purchase flood insurance as part of the group. An analogy for the concept applied is group or employee health insurance coverage versus individual coverage. We all understand that group coverage is less expensive than individual coverage due to many advantages of economies of scale.…
