Property-casualty trade group representatives had taken aim at the program for calling on the industry to cover flood risk, which has been the province of the federal government for nearly four decades. Concerns have been raised from insurers' organizations about many aspects of the backstop proposal, which has strong backing from leading personal lines insurers Allstate and State Farm.

McCarty said flood risk was added at the behest of Gulf State regulators whose electorate includes many uninsured residents who have lost their homes to hurricanes and resultant flooding.

Flood coverage efforts, he said, will now center on revamping the federal program and providing stricter language spelling out the coverage homeowners policies provide, and more importantly don't provide.

“Many people were misled into believing they did not need to obtain flood coverage,” McCarty said.

Loss mitigation incentives and mandates will remain a critical part of any catastrophe plan, McCarty said.

Nebraska regulator Allan Wickham said such incentives should go beyond premium credits, but he did not specify what he would add.

This article originally appeared in The National Underwriter P&C. For the complete article, please click here.