WASHINGTON – With a vote on a bill that would extend the federal flood insurance program for five years unlikely before next year, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., on Thursday asked the Senate to approve an extension through Sept. 30, 2012, the end of the current fiscal year.

This year, Congress approved two brief extensions of the flood insurance program, the latest of which runs out on Dec. 16.

Vitter said that last year, the program lapsed four times for 53 days, leaving the program without authority to issue new policies and resulting in delayed house closings in flood-prone communities. Read more…

NEWARK, Calif.—Insured losses from the 2011 hurricane season should amount to about 5 billion, catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions Inc. said in a commentary released Friday.

Newark, Calif.-based RMS noted that this year’s hurricane season, which ended Nov. 30, generated 19 tropical storms, seven of which grew into hurricanes. T Read more…

While insurance rates continue to rise in most loss-affected areas and classes of business, buyers still can achieve decreases in many lines of business, according to a fourth-quarter market briefing released Thursday by Marsh Inc.

Despite the year’s insured catastrophe losses of more than 100 billion, capacity in the global insurance market remains plentiful and there is no evidence of across-the-board price increases, New York-based Marsh reported in its “Global Insurance Market Quarterly Briefing: Q4 2011.”

The Marsh report said that while countries affected by catastrophes have seen significant rate increases, noncatastrophe-exposed buyers saw property insurance rates either decrease or remain stable in most areas of the world.

Meanwhile, the U.S. pro Read more…

Alarmed at the Obama administration’s proposed cuts to America’s tsunami warning and preparedness programs, six U.S. senators from California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii on Tuesday demanded the money be put back in the budget.

In a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, the six, including California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, said the proposed cuts “jeopardize the safety and economic stability of communities in our states.”

In its proposed 2013 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Obama administration is seeking to save 4.6 million through two cuts to the tsunami program.

The first would be a 1 million reduction in the roughly 11 million annual budget that funds operations and maintenance for a network of 39 high-tech buoys spread out across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Read more…