A coalition of disaster experts is calling on Congress to quickly approve a national catastrophe insurance program. The experts said that a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in the current congressional session should serve as the basis for a bill in the new session beginning in January. James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Clinton Administration, warned that the U.S. is facing weather events that will be more frequent and more devastating than in the past. 

The Homeowners Defense Act, which is being pushed by Florida lawmakers and was backed by President-elect Obama when he was in the Senate, would create state catastrophe funds that would support a federal reinsurance program. Witt and Retired Admiral James Loy, a former deputy secretary of homeland security, are co-chairmen of ProtectingAmerica.org, a coalition of 300 organizations. They contend that a national program is needed to address catastrophe insurance issues. But Mississippi Gulf Coast residents, who are still recovering from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, are not likely to benefit from the approach, according to a staff member of Congressman Gene Taylor’s office, a Mississippi Democrat. Congressman Taylor is pushing a provision in the flood insurance reauthorization that would add wind coverage to the federal program.

Experts: Insure for All-Peril (Biloxi MS Sun-Herald 12/3/08)

December 9, 2008