Affordability of National Flood Insurance Program Premiums Report 2 (2016) / Chapter Skim
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3 Data for Analyses of National Flood Insurance Program Policy Options
3 Data for Analyses of National Flood Insurance Program Policy Options
Pages 49-66
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From page 49... ...
. At present, FEMA has access to the NFIP policy database that includes some of these data and to flood insurance rate maps (FIRMs)
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THE NFIP POLICY DATABASE FEMA's NFIP policy database includes about 4.5 million records and 76 data fields. The database was created for tracking NFIP policies insured by the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA)
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Insurance deductible and coverage amounts for both the property and the contents are included within the policy database, as are premiums. Policy endorsement dates, original effective dates (for rollover policies)
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The following fields are provided in the NFIP policy database, but the information within them is not fully populated for all policies: • Base flood elevation (BFE) from the FIRMs • Whether there is an elevation certificate for the property and, if so, what the diagram number is
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From page 53... ...
Most of the fields included in the NFIP policy database are well populated. The October 2013 policy database had a 95 percent completion rate or better in regard to general information about the policy and policy older, h the geographic location of the insured structures, data from the community's FEMA FIRMs, the insurance deductible and coverage amounts for each policy, the policy premiums and risk ratings, and insured building characteristics under each policy.
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From page 54... ...
Because flood insurance premiums for policies on properties outside the SFHA are not elevation rated, elevation data for those properties are missing and are not currently being collected. FLOOD INSURANCE RATE MAPS FEMA has completed an ambitious program to provide the nation with coverage of digital flood insurance rate maps (DFIRMs)
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OTHER DATA SOURCES The questions posed to FEMA will require data for policyholders and the insured properties, as well as uninsured properties and their owners, which cannot be found in the NFIP policy database or derived from the DFIRMs. Particularly important data gaps include the absence of first-floor elevation data for many policies and the absence of any data on uninsured properties.
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Decennial Census/American Community Survey Information The decennial census of population and the continuing American Community Survey (ACS) are sources of information that may help FEMA answer some kinds of policy questions.
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Such special tabulations could provide a clearer picture of areas in which there may be households at risk of floods and of inability to afford flood insurance premiums. Such areas could not be smaller in population size than block groups, which are the smallest areas currently released from the ACS, but the specially defined areas could have more relevant boundaries for analyzing flood risk and insurance affordability.
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The ACS currently provides ratios of household income to poverty level for census tracts but not block groups, and might be able to provide them for FEMA-defined flood-prone areas.7 Possible uses of ACS data for flood insurance program policy analysis could include the following: • In small areas containing large numbers of current policyholders, ACS data for those areas could help indicate the likely affordability of premiums for the remaining households by using a combination of what is known about the policyholders (although currently very little information is available on policyholders) and all residents in a model to predict characteristics of interest for nonpolicyholders.
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As one other example, there are private firms that maintain databases on mortgage balances at the individual property level. These data would be used to establish whether the property owner faces a mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement.
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HEC-RAS (River Analysis System) takes the highest discharge from the design flood hydrograph and calculates the corresponding flood water surface elevation above geodetic datum, using a map of land surface terrain and channel morphology often derived from light detection and ranging (LiDAR)
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From page 61... ...
Therefore, only the hazard and damage procedures can be used in microsimulation modeling. LiDAR Building elevation data are often missing from the NFIP policy database and information available on building characteristics for properties that do not have an NFIP policy can only be acquired from other sources.
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LiDAR technology has become one of the basic building blocks to determine ground surface elevations. FILLING DATA GAPS Gaps in the NFIP policy database and from DFIRMs are (a)
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Compliance with the requirements of BW 2012 and HFIAA 2014 and the need to evaluate NFIP policy option alternatives over time provide a reason for FEMA to collect infor ation beyond what is currently collected. m FEMA could commission a spatial sample of homeowner/at-risk properties selected from the NFIP policy database.
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From page 64... ...
In the case of a FEMA survey, the information on current NFIP policies could help in modeling nonresponse adjustments for that portion of the sample, but it could not help for the portion comprising at-risk properties without flood insurance coverage. How many completed survey cases are needed for a FEMA survey will be a function of the extent of disaggregation of microsimulation model results that is desired (greater disaggregation requires a larger sample to attain adequate precision of estimates)
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From page 65... ...
Also, even if all of the data in the NFIP policy database were complete and accurate, the database cannot be used to simulate affordability assistance programs that are means tested because the database does not contain income, wealth, or housing cost data. Furthermore, the NFIP database does not contain information for nonpolicyholders located in flood-prone areas and cannot be used to analyze whether an alternative policy option that would reduce premiums or provide assistance might promote takeup among such households.
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From page 66... ...
Finding 3.3. Information available from the NFIP policy database and from FIRMs are missing data critical to a comprehensive analysis of policy options.
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