Back in April of 2010, we reported that the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was reauthorized after it had lapsed (but had been made retroactive to the lapse date). Basically, it had expired for some time, then reauthorized, and all policies written during the lapsed time were back-dated. This made all policies legitimate and nothing was truly affected, except for the folks that were trying to get flood insurance and had to deal with the inconvenience. (In fact, about 47,000 home sales were slowed or canceled during a short lapse by NFIP in 2010. [source: NAR]) Well… the National Flood Insurance Program may lapse again.

If Congress doesn’t decide to extend the program, it will expire on September 30, 2011.

To be clear, this lapse would only effect new flood insurance policies, not policies that are already in place.

The Virginia Association of Realtors® is working to get the NFIP back into place — not for the short-term, but for a full five years. This would allow the authorities in place to come up with a better solution, rather than having the plan lapse and have to be extended time and again.

If you have questions about flood insurance, call your insurance agent or contact us. We can recommend some great insurance agents in the Harrisonburg area to you!