A Brief Introduction to the National Flood Insurance Program

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is the primary source of flood insurance coverage for residential properties in the United States.

The NFIP has two main policy goals, to provide access to primary flood insurance, thereby allowing for the transfer of some of the financial risk of property owners to the federal government and to mitigate and reduce the nation’s risk through the development and implementation of floodplain management standards. A longer-term objective of the NFIP is to reduce federal expenditure on disasters after floods.