{"id":32775,"date":"2013-11-20T09:46:26","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T15:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=32775"},"modified":"2013-11-21T10:02:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-21T16:02:11","slug":"why-flood-insurance-is-likely-going-to-cost-more-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/11\/20\/why-flood-insurance-is-likely-going-to-cost-more-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Flood Insurance Is Likely Going to Cost More in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mose Buchele<\/p>

Richard Rivera stands in front of a red sticker that marks his house as "uninhabitable" due to recent flooding.<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s been three weeks since a flood swept through Richard Rivera’s Austin, Texas home. There’s still a dead car, washed up by the waters, deposited on his front yard. A crack has formed on his concrete driveway. A result, he says, of the deluge. He doesn’t know where his air conditioning unit floated off to. His home bears the red sticker, left by city inspectors, that deems it uninhabitable.<\/p>\n

But unlike many of his neighbors, Rivera can take solace in the fact that he was prepared. He paid about $2,000 annually for flood insurance.<\/p>\n

“You pay it, and you pay it, and pay it, and hopefully you never need it, but when you need it, you\u2019d like to have it,” he says with a rueful smile, standing in the wreckage.<\/p>\n

In a decision he now looks back on with some degree of awe, Rivera had increased his insurance coverage just months before the flood, expanding it to cover an additional $60,000 in damages.<\/p>\n

Around the same time, he says, his neighbors dropped their insurance altogether.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe got laid off and his wife got laid off. \u201cThat was one of the deals where the payment was about as high as the mortgage so he let it go,” Rivera says. <\/p>\n

“That guy is really having some problems right now” he adds. “They’ve got kids.”<\/p>\n

There’s a growing concern that more people will find themselves in the situation of that neighbor if changes to the National Flood Insurance Program move ahead.<\/p>\n

Flood insurance is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). That\u2019s because private insurers wouldn\u2019t offer coverage to some homeowners without the backing of the government, says Professor David Maidment, head of the University of Texas Center for Research in Water Resources.<\/p>\n

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