A $1 million, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom beachfront home in Massachusetts that is owned by a Florida woman is getting moved and rebuilt with a $180,000 federal grant, according to an article by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting that highlights some of the problems with the federal flood insurance program:
The program is now more than $20 billion in debt and relies on billions from the federal government to stay afloat.
Congress attempted to end the program's premium subsidies in a 2012 law, but backlash over the enormous proposed increases to how much people would have to pay for flood insurance – coupled with new federal flood maps that assigned skyrocketing premiums to homeowners never hit by water – triggered a new, less onerous law.
This particular home, "damaged at least 10 times by Atlantic storms," is a repeat beneficiary: "The house was first raised about three feet with a $40,000 federal grant about a dozen years ago. This time, it will go up five feet more."
