Rising Tides, Rising Solutions: A Maryland Program Proposal to Navigate the Flood Insurance Frontier

Renae Hee Eun Lee

Mrs. Park walks around her block as she has done every morning for the past thirty years and on her way, runs into her neighbor. They exchange greetings, “you get your damage insurance money yet?” her neighbor asks. “Not yet!” she replies. Despite the lighthearted greeting, the conversation carries a subtle reminder of the tragedy their community endured over a year ago when Hurricane Ian destroyed their homes.

Mrs. Park, a seventy-seven-year-old matriarch and widow, was suffering from shingles while being cared for by her sister when in September 2022, Hurricane Ian (“Ian”) hit Southwest Florida as a dangerous high-end Category 4 storm. Although the governor of Florida declared a state of emergency five days prior, Mrs. Park did not evacuate. She had lived in Cape Coral for over thirty years, and had weathered several disastrous hurricanes, including Andrew, Charley, and Irma. Unfortunately, Ian was unlike any storm the area had faced before. Mrs. Park watched helplessly as the waters rose inch by inch, slowly destroying the home she and her late husband stewarded for decades. Trapped within rising waters without any power, Mrs. Park was unsure if she and her sister would make it through the night. She used the little remaining battery she had left in her phone to tell her family in Maryland that they were alive and would wait out the storm in the attic.

Mrs. Park survived the storm, but the catastrophic flooding caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to her home as well as immeasurable emotional turmoil. However, the real ordeal came after the waters receded in the form of a protracted battle with her flood insurance company. As of this writing, Mrs. Park had not received a payout from her flood insurance company which went insolvent shortly after the storm. For future storms, people like Mrs. Park face more risk because home and flood insurance policies have increased as much as $10,000 per year. Mrs. Park, like many other Florida coastal homeowners, opted to forgo opening a new policy, choosing instead to personally bear the risk of another catastrophic hurricane.

Mrs. Park represents just one among thousands of homeowners adversely affected by the current flood insurance system. In an effort to address the issue, this Comment proposes that Maryland, a state with high flood risk, adopt a compulsory flood insurance program to serve as a blueprint for a nationwide solution. The flaws in the existing flood insurance framework, evident not only in Florida but nationwide, create a situation where insurance companies frequently fall short in compensating policyholders, leading homeowners to resort to self-insurance. This practice leaves already vulnerable communities more vulnerable. Moreover, insurance companies tend to insure those in risk prone areas and lack the necessary capital to provide relief to their policyholders in the event of a disaster. In addition, Congress has yet to establish a sustainable flood insurance system that ensures vulnerable communities have access to affordable post-disaster relief. With the increase in weather-related disasters due to rising sea levels and global warming, it is imperative to find answers to the flood insurance question. Implementing a program in Maryland will help address the shortcomings of the current flood insurance scheme and provide a more equitable solution for homeowners nationwide.