Summary

The Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973 requires the purchase of flood insurance for (1) any federal loan or grant used to buy or build a home in certain flood areas and (2) loans secured by improved property in certain flood areas if the loans are made by financial institutions regulated or insured by the federal government. A key objective of legislation pending before Congress is to expand the number of properties required to have such flood insurance. GAO's limited review of victims in two floods in Texas and Maine shows that most households in Maine that were subject to the mandatory purchase requirement did have flood insurance; however, most in Texas did not. GAO could not discover the reason for this disparity, although the large majority of flood victims in both states were not subject to the mandatory purchase requirement. The two main reasons for this were that many Maine households had unmortgaged property and many mortgages in Texas were held by unregulated lenders who are exempt from the mandatory purchase requirement.