Flood History Information Act of 2026
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill adds a flood-insurance data exchange program to the National Flood Insurance Act. FEMA must disclose NFIP policy and claims information to insurance companies that sign data-sharing agreements, including property location, coverage in force, dates of loss, claims paid, and other necessary policy or claims information. Insurers may use the data only for underwriting, premium-setting, and claims adjustment, not marketing, and must provide their own policy and claims data back to FEMA in a prescribed form. FEMA must also provide purchasers, lessees, and current owners, on request, a property's known flood-claims history, mandatory-purchase information linked to prior disaster assistance, and other information needed to characterize flood risk. FEMA may charge insurers a fee deposited in the National Flood Insurance Fund but may not charge current owners for their own property information.
Who Benefits and How
Homebuyers, renters, current property owners, private flood insurers, NFIP participating insurers, mortgage lenders, and local flood-risk planners benefit from better information about prior flood losses, claims amounts, and insurance obligations. The bill makes flood-risk history more visible before a purchase or lease and improves insurer underwriting data.
Who Bears the Burden and How
FEMA must run the data-sharing program, negotiate agreements, protect Privacy Act records, respond to property-information requests, and collect or deposit insurer fees. Insurance companies must comply with use limits, avoid marketing uses, store and account for data, and return their own policy and claims information to FEMA.
Key Provisions
- Requires FEMA to share NFIP policy and claims data with insurance companies that sign data-sharing agreements.
- Limits insurer use of shared data to underwriting, premium rates, and claims adjustment while prohibiting marketing uses.
- Requires FEMA to give purchasers, lessees, and current owners known flood-claims and flood-risk information for the relevant property on request.
- Authorizes insurer fees for data exchange and deposits those fees in the National Flood Insurance Fund.
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
Requires FEMA to share National Flood Insurance Program policy and claims history with participating insurers and with property purchasers, lessees, and current owners on request.
Key Policy Areas
Housing, Insurance, Disaster Relief
Primary Purpose
Requires FEMA to share National Flood Insurance Program policy and claims history with participating insurers and with property purchasers, lessees, and current owners on request.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Homebuyers
- Renters
- Current property owners
- Private flood insurers
- NFIP participating insurers
- Mortgage lenders
Identified Costs
- FEMA
- Insurance companies
- National Flood Insurance Fund administrators
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Introduced in House
Ms. Dean of Pennsylvania (for herself and Mr. Garbarino) introduced …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Insurance companies, Private flood insurers
Positive-direction: Private flood insurers
Negative-direction: Insurance companies
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "Administrator"
- → FEMA Administrator
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