Problem
Lack of disclosure and access to flood risk information is a significant 100s of thousands of Americans live in homes that have flooded.
A home that has flooded in the past is likely to flood again and learning whether a home has flooded previously is not easy.
Many prospective homeowners are completely unaware of a property’s history with flooding.
Twenty-two states no statutory or regulatory requirements that mandate a seller disclose to a potential buyer any flood risks or past flood damages associated with the property.  The other twenty-eight have varying degrees of disclosure, creating a hodgepodge of state and local policies that hinder transparency of flood risk.

The result
Many Americans have no knowledge whether a house has flooded and, therefore, likely to flood again before making one of the biggest financial investments of their lives. This is all due to a lack of information — information that the previous owner may have and, if previous owners had flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), that FEMA would have too.

Solution
Congress must reform the National Flood Insurance Program to provide for greater access to and disclosure of flood hazard information
NRDC seeks to shine a light on this information deficit by launching an interactive, online map depicting each state’s flood hazard disclosure law, or lack thereof, and level of flood risk.
NRDC will utilize this website to pressure Congress to reform the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to include NRDC’s policy objectives concerning disclosure and transparency.

Those policy objectives are follows
Provide homeowners a “right to know” from FEMA about their property’s past flood insurance claim payments and flood damages Require FEMA to create a public, open-data system to share NFIP information related to a community or region’s flood risk Mandate comprehensive flood hazard disclosure requirements for real estate transactions as a condition of NFIP participation.

Why Beneficial
The more information current or prospective homeowners have about flooding, the better equipped they are for avoiding or mitigating the next potential flood, a benefit for both them and the NFIP in terms of avoided flood insurance payouts. Climate change is fuelling sea level rise and more extreme weather. As a result, flood risks are worsening Homeowners and home buyers will increasingly be at risk of flooding The best way to reduce risk is to allow for informed decision-making.