FOR THE past decade or so, we've covered flood insurance in the February issue. The thinking was that spring historically has been the time when snow melts, rains fall, rivers rise and homes flood. Consequently, February should be a good time for agents to place additional emphasis on selling flood insurance.

How quaint, how “Heartland” such thinking seems now. Perhaps I've been overly awed by what is usually called the “Great Flood of 1993,” for which I had a ringside seat here in St. Louis. So it inundated 17,000 square miles in the Upper Midwest. Big deal. Insured losses from that and all other floods that occurred from the National Flood Insurance Program's inception in 1969 through 2004 amounted to $12.7 billion. The NFIP probably went through that much money last fall alone in responding to flood claims arising from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. And it will go through a lot more–more than $23 billion in all by some estimates–before every claim is settled.

As you can imagine, this has created problems for a program that annually takes in maybe $2 billion in premiums. In September, Congress gave the NFIP authority to borrow an additional $1.5 billion from the federal government to cover flood losses. When it rapidly became apparent that that was not going to cut it, Congress first kicked up the amount to $3.5 billion in October and then, as the magnitude of the loss really sank in, to $18.5 billion in November. No one should be surprised if the NFIP feels compelled to make another trip to Congress with hat in hand.