WHEN YOU think about floods and the need for flood insurance, what's the first image that comes to mind? You might envision the storms that so recently overcame Florida and other parts of the Southeast. Perhaps you remember some of the more serious floods that have inundated the Midwest in the past few years, or the flooding and mudslides that have afflicted California.

When we think of flood insurance, our thoughts include public housing. That might not seem like the most natural connection, but it makes perfect sense to us. After all, insuring public housing authorities isn't just what we do-it's the very reason our company was founded in 1987. Since that time, we have constantly strived to meet the changing insurance needs of the public housing authorities we serve by making new types of coverage available.

During the past 18 months, this has included developing a flood insurance program. Working with a private carrier through the National Flood Insurance Program's "Write-Your-Own" program, we have written more than $300,000 in premium for flood-insurance policies. In this article, we'll explain how we built our program, what we've learned about the NFIP, and how flood insurance can be an important coverage for almost any client.