“Consumer trust in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is broken, and FEMA must make every effort—including today’s decision to extend the review deadline—to make New Jersey policyholders whole again. Our constituents have waited on FEMA to get things right for nearly three years—they should not have been further burdened by an arbitrary deadline in the first place,” said Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), who led efforts to push FEMA to conduct the reviews. Smith said he will continue to closely monitor the process to see if the new deadline of Oct. 15th is sufficient.

“I also welcome HUD’s partial waiver of duplication of benefits requirements in regards to additional flood claim payments. These homeowners were betrayed following Sandy, and they should not be faced with clawbacks from the federal government as a result,” continued Smith. “As I have reiterated, the administration must deliver on their promises, and these commonsense decisions should not come down to the eleventh hour.”

The Sandy Claims Review Process was established after Smith led a NJ congressional delegation meeting with FEMA’s Brad Kieserman, then-Deputy Associate Administrator for Insurance, in March of this year to address charges of fraud and underpayments of flood insurance claims to Sandy victims and discuss the reopening of claims. As a result of that meeting, Kieserman pledged to establish a robust and thorough claims process to review all potential Sandy-related underpayments.

Last month, Smith spearheaded a bipartisan letter—signed by every Member of the New Jersey Congressional Delegation—urging Secretary Julián Castro of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to exercise his authority to prevent further delays in the payout process due to a complex and costly duplication of benefits analysis.  The State of New Jersey has already made clear that it will not consider the additional flood insurance payouts as a duplication of benefits with any Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR) award—such as grants for Sandy victims made with federal fund through the State’s Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation, and Mitigation (RREM) Program.

More information on reopening a claim can be found here. NFIP Policyholders can go online to www.fema.gov/hurricane-sandy-nfip-claims to download a form requesting a review, which can be filled out and emailed to FEMA-sandyclaimsreview@fema.dhs.gov or faxed to 202-646-7970. Policyholders who have already requested a review of their claim do not have to call again—an adjuster will continue to work with them after the new October 15^th deadline.