BATON ROUGE – As many as 40,000 Louisiana residents could lose their flood insurance during the government shutdown, according to Governor John Bel Edwards.
Approximately 501,000 residents depend on a National Flood Insurance Program policy across the state, and about 40,000 of those policies are renewed on a monthly basis, Edwards said.
While the government is shut down, FEMA has announced that insurers are forbidden from issuing new policies or renewing existing policies, putting tens of thousands of Louisiana homeowners at risk of losing flood insurance as long as the government is shut down.
“The real life consequences of the federal government shutdown continues to grow with each passing day,” Edwards said. “Today, Louisiana is being inundated by torrential downpours which makes FEMA’s decision to disallow the renewal or issuing of new policies through the National Flood Insurance Program a real concern to thousands of families in our state. In addition, the Violence Against Women’s Act has lapsed and thousands of federal employees are spending the holidays without pay. There are very real ramifications to this government shutdown, but there appears to be a lack of urgency in Washington to forge a compromise. This is unacceptable, and it’s time for those in Congress and the Administration to come together to find a bipartisan solution to end this shutdown.”