NAHB's Chair Rick Judson applauded the introduction of bipartisan legislation in both the Senate and House to provide homeowners with relief from soaring flood insurance premium rates. "The Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act offers a common-sense solution to fix some of the costly and unintended consequences resulting from the Biggert-Waters  Flood Insurance Reform Act" [of 2012]," he said.

The Biggert-Waters Act extends the national flood insurance program for five years and requires significant changes to many aspects of the program. Unintended consequences include flood hazard areas that were redefined, which can affect millions of homeowners. It also meant premium rate hikes. When the Act was passed, it was expected that there would be rate hikes, however, FEMA had not yet evaluated the rate changes for properties located within a special flood hazard area that were constructed before a community adopted its first flood insurance rate map. So it was largely unknown about what those rate hikes would be.

Judson said that the new legislation would "prevent premium rate hikes from taking effect for four years, which will give FEMA time to conduct an affordability study and to reimburse those who can prove that its existing flood plain maps are inaccurate. The measure also requires FEMA to adopt sound engineering practices to accurately determine flood risk."

He added, "These provisions in the insurance reform bill will prevent undue hardship on the recovering housing market, help current and future policyholders keep their premiums affordable, prevent home values from dropping and make the National Flood Insurance Program more effective for years to come.