Member News

The following is a message AFIE received from our flood insurance carrier, Fidelity National Insurance Company on March 3, 2010.

NFIP Reauthorization Extended for Next 30 Days         

The Senate passed a bill last night by a vote of 78-19 that extended the re-authorization of the NFIP for the next 30 days.  It passed the House last week and President Barack Obama signed the bill into law quickly as it was tied to jobless benefits and put 2,000 Transportation Department workers back to work today.  The re-authorization of the NFIP was not enacted retroactively at this time affecting transactions to issue new policies, increase coverage on existing policies and continue renewal policies during the lapsed period from the February 28 th midnight expiration through March 2nd. Congress continues to debate this point and hopes to gain the retroactivity feature i n the very near future. We will keep you informed and will automatically adjust effective dates under the guidance of the NFIP.

“Fidelity has been proactively handling the NFIP program transactions as much as possible under the guidance of the NFIP and will now move forward to issue those policy transactions on hold pending the authorization”, stated Fidelity VP and NFIP Program Coordinator, Patty Templeton-Jones. 

Fidelity National Flood will continue to follow all guidelines in accordance with the FEMA Bulletin W-09068 , issued October 27, 2009, and titled “Recommendations/Guidance for Possible NFIP Authority Lapse and Hiatus” available at: http://bsa.nfipstat.com/wyobull/w-09068.pdf .  

Fidelity National Property and Casualty Insurance Group is the largest provider of NFIP flood policies in the U.S.  The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a component of FEMA, provides flood insurance in more than 20,000 communities across the United States. 

Please contact AFI's Flood insurance department at 800-524-9329 or flood@afi.org with any questions or concerns.