To make administrative reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program to increase fairness and accuracy and protect the taxpayer from program fraud and abuse, and for other purposes.
Analysis under review: This bill has generated analysis that may be too generic or incomplete. Clause-level evidence remains available below.
Summary
What This Bill Does
The bill creates pilot program for Write Your Own companies to voluntarily investigate preexisting structural conditions that could cause claim denials. Policyholders can request inspections, with costs covered by surcharges, amends National Flood Insurance Act to add new section establishing fraud penalties for false statements, forged reports, and fraudulent claims. Requires exhaustion of administrative remedies and referral to state, and establishes fraud penalties for knowingly making false statements, forging reports, or submitting fraudulent claims in connection with National Flood Insurance Program claims. Violators are referred to state licensing. It relies on compliance mandates, reporting requirements, product standards, and definition changes. The main policy areas are Insurance and Finance.
Who Benefits and How
NFIP policyholders could face reduced risk, Write Your Own insurance companies could gain revenue opportunities, and National Flood Insurance Fund could gain revenue opportunities.
Who Bears the Burden and How
FEMA Administrator would take on compliance duties, Write Your Own companies would take on compliance duties, and FEMA would take on compliance duties.
Key Provisions
- Creates pilot program for Write Your Own companies to voluntarily investigate preexisting structural conditions that could cause claim denials. Policyholders can request inspections, with costs covered by surcharges....
- Amends National Flood Insurance Act to add new section establishing fraud penalties for false statements, forged reports, and fraudulent claims. Requires exhaustion of administrative remedies and referral to state...
- Establishes fraud penalties for knowingly making false statements, forging reports, or submitting fraudulent claims in connection with National Flood Insurance Program claims. Violators are referred to state licensing...
- Establishes enhanced policyholder appeals process with written decisions, 120-day deadline, ability to direct Write Your Own companies to take corrective action, and tolling of statute of limitations during appeals....
- Creates formal appeals process for NFIP policyholders to contest claim denials, requiring FEMA to issue written decisions within 120 days (extendable for extraordinary circumstances) and directing Write Your Own...
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
The bill creates pilot program for Write Your Own companies to voluntarily investigate preexisting structural conditions that could cause claim denials. Policyholders can request inspections, with costs covered by surcharges, amends National Flood Insurance Act to add new section establishing fraud penalties for false statements, forged reports, and fraudulent claims. Requires exhaustion of administrative remedies and referral to state, and establishes fraud penalties for knowingly making false statements, forging reports, or submitting fraudulent claims in connection with National Flood Insurance Program claims. Violators are referred to state licensing.
Key Policy Areas
Insurance, Finance
Primary Purpose
The bill creates pilot program for Write Your Own companies to voluntarily investigate preexisting structural conditions that could cause claim denials. Policyholders can request inspections, with costs covered by surcharges, amends National Flood Insurance Act to add new section establishing fraud penalties for false statements, forged reports, and fraudulent claims. Requires exhaustion of administrative remedies and referral to state, and establishes fraud penalties for knowingly making false statements, forging reports, or submitting fraudulent claims in connection with National Flood Insurance Program claims. Violators are referred to state licensing.
Policy Domains
NFIP Administrative Reforms
Identified Gains
- NFIP policyholders
- Write Your Own insurance companies
- National Flood Insurance Fund
- NFIP policyholders (claims certainty)
- NFIP policyholders (fraud protection)
Identified Costs
- FEMA Administrator
- Write Your Own companies
- FEMA
- FEMA claims processing
- Write Your Own insurance companies
Legislative Progress
IntroducedMs. Velázquez introduced the following bill; which was referred to …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Attorney General, FEMA, FEMA Administrator
Positive-direction: Legal and regulatory interpreters, NFIP (cost control), National Flood Insurance Fund
Negative-direction: Attorney General, FEMA, FEMA Administrator, FEMA claims processing, Federal lending regulators (OCC, FDIC, Fed, NCUA), Government Accountability Office
Claims adjusters and insurance professionals, Engineers, claims adjusters, and technical report preparers, Insurance industry professionals (agents, actuaries, claims specialists)
Write Your Own companies, Write Your Own insurance companies face effects in multiple directions
Positive-direction: Insurance industry professionals (agents, actuaries, claims specialists), Insurance industry stakeholders, Lenders and mortgage servicers, Write Your Own companies (joint defense benefit)
Negative-direction: Claims adjusters and insurance professionals, Engineers, claims adjusters, and technical report preparers
NFIP policyholders, NFIP policyholders (claims certainty), NFIP policyholders (fraud protection)
Positive-direction: NFIP policyholders, NFIP policyholders (claims certainty), NFIP policyholders (fraud protection)
Negative-direction: NFIP policyholders requesting inspections
Engineers, surveyors, architects providing technical reports
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "the_administrator"
- → FEMA Administrator
- "the_attorney_general"
- → Attorney General
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
Having actual awareness of the prohibitions and acting deliberately in violation of such prohibitions
A person or persons shown as an insured on the declarations page of a policy for flood insurance coverage
A report created for the purpose of furnishing technical assistance to an insurance claims adjuster, including by engineers, surveyors, salvors, architects, and certified public accountants
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology