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Kentucky joins lawsuit against the federal government over flood insurance rates

The Commonwealth has joined nine other states in a lawsuit against the federal government. The announcement was made Monday by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office. Officials said the lawsuit seeks to block new methods FEMA started using to calculate premiums for the National Flood Insurance Program.

Christopher Thacker is Assistant Deputy Attorney General over the Civil Division of the Kentucky Attorney General. Thacker said data from when these policies went into effect in 2022 showed significant increases for rate payers. Thacker said those increases are expected to get higher in the coming years.

“The average cost of Federal Flood Insurance Policy in Kentucky would more than double statewide. There were 41 zip codes that would experience increases between 200 and 600 percent in Kentucky and some of the steepest increases are the same areas that were devastated by the severe flooding last year in eastern Kentucky,” said Thacker.

According to state officials, in Johnson County the average cost would increase more than 700 percent. Thacker said with a median income level of $41,000, that rate would make flood insurance unaffordable for most people.

In addition to those soaring costs, the AG’s office found some procedural issues with FEMA’s new methods.

“They didn’t go through a notice and comment process, which under the Administrative Procedures Act, federal agencies are generally required to do before issuing new regulations. And we believe that this is the kind of broad policy action that should have gone through a notice and comment period to allow stakeholders such as the states in this lawsuit and the individuals affected to weigh in,” said Thacker.

Thacker added that the new projected rates are out of sync with the instructions congress gave to FEMA when they tasked the agency with providing flood insurance at reasonable rates.

The lawsuit seeks to block the new rates, revert to legacy methods of calculating rates and provide more transparency when making future changes to policy.