The National Flood Insurance Program isn’t doing too well. The program, which offers public flood insurance to almost 5 million households nationwide, is about $20 billion in debt, and it lost almost half a million customers last year after debuting a new system for calculating risk. To make matters worse, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s legal authorization to run the insurance program will expire on Saturday amid a broader fight in Congress over federal spending. At that point, policies will start to lapse at the end of their term, leaving thousands of people without flood coverage during the tail end of hurricane season.
