The National Flood Insurance Program, established in 1968, is the United States Federal Government's largest and most significant intervention in the personal lines insurance market. The program, by some measures the world's largest writer of flood cover, has never worked particularly well despite numerous tweaks from both Congress and the executive branch. In this brief course, we'll explore how the program came to be, why it has never lived up to its creator's promises, the new challenges it is facing following superstorm Sandy, the 2012 revisions to the law, and the ways in which it may change in the near future. The course will give special attention to certain and possible changes confronting producers working with WYOs.

Students will learn:

• The absolutely incontrovertible evidence that private industry can insure flood losses.
• Why plenty of people who have quietly paid flood premiums for years are going to be getting very angry over the next few years. 
• Why the flood insurance rate map changes have become so politically controversial--and the little-discussed consumer upside of politically controversial re-mappings.
• Why the WYO program may well be on its last legs.
• The public policies most likely to protect flood-coverage related commissions--and why a large part of the industry won't like them.