Take Away Insurance...

...and people won't build houses where they shouldn't. If tax payer subsidized insurance was cut back, some Jersey Shore property owners would probably, eventually, lose their houses to the wind and sea and would not be able to rebuild.

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[According to The Star-Ledger, members of Congress are preparing to back legislation to target "repetitive-loss" structures. Solutions said to be under consideration are said to include buying and demolishing homes that flood repeatedly, requiring their owners to floodproof them, taking away subsidized coverage and boosting premiums to more closely reflect actuarial realities. "As it stands today, the flood insurance program provides coverage for thousands of repetitive-loss properties, vacation homes and, perhaps, a considerable number of structures that should never have been built," said Sen. Richard Shelby, D-Ala., whose committee held hearings on the troubled program.

Among the states with the worst record on repetitive claims is New Jersey. New Jersey's 7,376 flood-prone structures, half of them on the barrier islands off Atlantic and Cape May counties or in the Passaic River basin, represent less than 4 percent of the 200,000 properties owned by the program but account for more than 50 percent of the $334.2 million worth of claims paid since 1978. Of these buildings, 1,115 have had four or more $1,000-plus claims or two or more claims that, together, exceed the current value of the structure. Only Louisiana and Texas are home to more of these "severe repetitive loss" properties.]

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