National Flood Insurance: Management and Accountability in the Wake of Superstorm Sandy

by Brenda Murphy (Editor)

The most destructive storm of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Superstorm Sandy smashed ashore on the U.S. East Coast in October 2012 after cutting a path of destruction north from the Caribbean. Altogether, it has been estimated to have caused more than $68 billion in damage, and killed over 200 people in several countries. The second-costliest such storm in U.S. history behind only Hurricane Katrina in 2005 Sandy is reported to have killed at least 117 people in the United States alone, and it caused tremendous damage along the most populated coastline in the country. As a result, Sandy generated 144,484 claims under federal flood insurance coverage under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This book begins by laying out how the NFIP claims management process works, how its various pieces interact, and how the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) attempts to ensure quality control. It then explores the incentive structures that face insurance companies, claims processing vendors, adjusters, and engineers, and the management challenges that confront the NFIP as it attempts to handle catastrophic flood events.

114 pages, Hardcover

Published February 1, 2016

About the author

Brenda Murphy is the author of more than twenty books, mostly about American drama and theater. Recently she has been writing biography, memoir, and biographical fiction. Her latest books include When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story (2023), Becoming Carlotta: A Biographical Novel (2018), based on the life of the actress Carlotta Monterey, Eugene O’Neill Remembered (2017, with George Monteiro), a biography in documents, and After the Voyage: An Irish American Story (2016), historical fiction based on the experience of her immigrant family in the Boston area from 1870 until the 1930s. After teaching at universities in New York and Connecticut, Brenda now lives in Maryland where she enjoys writing full time surrounded by deer and horse farms.