As of September 2011, there were nearly 500,000 flood insurance policies in effect in Louisiana. With the assistance of the NFIP which helps defray the cost of flood insurance, that number has steadily increased.

Today, through the NFIP, flood insurance coverage has been made available in more than 20,000 United States territories and communities. In addition, the number of national private insurance companies that offer government-backed flood insurance is growing. Even with the ever-growing need for federal disaster assistance, the NFIP saves the U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars each year.

THE START OF THE NATIONAL FLOOD INSURANCE PROGRAM

In1968, Congress passed the National Flood Insurance Act in response to increasing concerns about flood preparation, the devastation of flood damage, and the rising cost of flood insurance. This act established the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to help alleviate the consumer cost for flood insurance as well as to modernize construction standards which would mitigate some of the damage occurred during flood events. At its inception, the NFIP was part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

At the dawn of 1972, there were fewer than 100,000 flood insurance policies in effect. Mid-year, however, Hurricane Agnes changed the way flood insurance was viewed. After a large portion of the eastern United States was damaged to the tune of an estimated $4 billion dollars, Congress investigated and discovered that very few buildings carried flood insurance. This discovery led to the Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973 which further modified the National Flood Insurance Act.

The Flood Disaster Protection Act made flood insurance coverage mandatory for all buildings located in identified flood-hazard areas in order to receive loans from FDIC-insurance banks or federal aid as part of federal disaster assistance. By the close of the decade, there were an estimated 2 million flood insurance policies in effect.

Today, the NFIP is administered by FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security and the number of flood insurance policies in effect nationwide has increased to nearly 5.6 million.