Sponsor
Richard Lynn Scott
Senator · R-FL
Senator · R-FL
The bill expands private flood-insurance options and could reduce federal exposure, but shifts risk to private markets in ways that may raise costs for high-risk property owners and create coordination and consumer-protection challenges.
Homeowners and small-business owners can buy private flood insurance alongside NFIP-related products, expanding coverage options and encouraging competition and innovation in the flood-insurance market.
Taxpayers may face reduced exposure over time if private-market solutions take on more flood risk previously borne by the NFIP, potentially lowering future federal outlays.
Private insurers participating in the Write Your Own program retain the ability to sell private flood policies, which supports insurer participation and could spur product innovation and insurer competition.
Homeowners and renters in higher-risk areas could face substantially higher premiums if private insurers move those policies out of the NFIP and price risk more aggressively.
Homeowners may experience gaps, overlaps, or confusion in coverage and claims handling when coordinating between NFIP-backed products and private flood policies.
FEMA may lose leverage to enforce uniform consumer protections or consistent policy terms across insurers handling federally related flood business, potentially weakening protections for policyholders.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bars FEMA from requiring NFIP Write Your Own participants to refrain from offering or selling private flood insurance and forbids adding such restrictions to future agreements.
Official title: Ensure that Write Your Own companies can sell private flood insurance products that compete with National Flood Insurance Program products.
Introduced June 12, 2025 by Richard Lynn Scott · Last progress June 12, 2025
Prohibits FEMA from conditioning participation in the National Flood Insurance Program’s "Write Your Own" (WYO) arrangement on insurers, agents, brokers, or adjusters agreeing not to offer or sell private flood insurance. It adds a statutory definition of the WYO Program and bars FEMA from including or imposing any current or future participation terms that restrict private flood insurance sales or distribution by private-sector participants. The restriction takes effect on enactment and applies to future agreements.