One Year After The Kerr County Flood, The Trump Administration Is Pushing To Privatize Flood Insurance And Price Millions Out Of Coverage

The FEMA Review Council’s plan would accelerate the pricing scheme already driving low-income families out of the National Flood Insurance Program, then strip away the housing help they’d need to recover

TEXAS — One year ago this week, floodwaters killed more than 100 people in Kerr County, Texas, and left families across the Hill Country to rebuild lives the water took in a matter of hours. As those families mark the anniversary, the Trump administration is advancing a plan that would make the next disaster harder to survive financially, not easier.

The FEMA Review Council’s final report recommends accelerating full risk-based pricing under the National Flood Insurance Program and creating a clearinghouse to hand flood policies off to private insurers, while ending FEMA’s role in long-term housing assistance at the same time. The combined effect would strip flood-prone families of both the coverage they need before a disaster and the housing help they depend on after one. In Kerr County, only 3% of the homes in FEMA-designated flood zones carried federal flood insurance, leaving the overwhelming majority of families to face catastrophic losses with no coverage at all.

“The National Flood Insurance Program exists because the private market would not cover high-risk communities at a price families could afford,” said Davante Lewis, SOS Advisory Council member. “In Kerr County, only 3 percent of homes in the flood zone were covered. That is an argument for expanding this program and bringing more families in, not pricing them out and handing the profitable policies to private insurers.”

The NFIP was created 58 years ago on a simple premise: private insurers would not offer affordable flood coverage in high-risk areas, so the federal government would. The Council’s plan moves premiums toward full private-market rates, and the damage is already documented. Peer-reviewed research found Risk Rating 2.0 has driven new flood insurance policies down by as much as 39%, with the steepest declines in the lowest-income communities. The median premium increase under full pricing is $433 a year, a 63% jump. In the highest-risk ZIP codes, premiums are projected to climb 279%, to more than $2,000 a year.

The proposed plan lets private insurers cherry-pick the lowest-risk, most profitable policies, leaving the NFIP holding the highest-risk properties while losing the premium base that helps offset catastrophic losses. 

“A year after Kerr County, the lesson should be that families need more protection before the water rises, not less,” added Lewis. 

Read SOS’s full analysis of the FEMA Review Council report here.

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