InsureUS Cypress, TX, offers flood insurance policies, to Texas residents. While Texas does not require homeowners to purchase flood insurance, the State has a history of catastrophic floods.
History of Flood Insurance
There is a U.S. Constitutional basis for government control over protecting America’s waterways. In 1824, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Gibbons v. Ogden, ruled that the commerce clause, Article I, Section 8, permitted the federal government to construct and finance river improvements. Congress then appropriated funds and authorized the Corps of Engineers to remove navigation obstructions from the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Twenty-five years later The Swamp Land Acts became law which transferred swamp and overflows land to state government control. One project required that the states use money from land sales to build levees and drainage channels on the lower Mississippi River without the use of federal funds.
Congress continued its efforts in controlling flooding throughout the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. In 1913 the flood in the Ohio River Valley killed 415 people, causing about $200 million in property loss. The public became alarmed, and Congress took more aggressive action authorizing a Committee on Flood Control in 1916 and the 1917 Flood Control Act.
FEMA
The framework for flood insurance was built for today’s legal basis for flood control and flood insurance. On April 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter issued an Executive Order, ordering the creation of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA is within the Department of Homeland Security.
NIFP/PRIVATE FLOOD INSURANCE
FEMA flood insurance aid was delivered through the National Flood Insurance Program (NIFP. On March 16, 212 non-Federal flood insurance was allowed to be underwritten by lending institutions to support private flood insurance.
The agents at InsureUS Cypress, TX want to speak to you before the next flood in your area. Please contact us before the next Hurricane!
