Iowa Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss announced yesterday thatshe had met with insurers and told them she is putting a floodclaim mediation service in place.

Ms. Voss also said she had urged carriers to be lenient withflooded homeowners who are late with policy premiums.

Ms. Voss, who said the industry appeared to be responding wellto the flood disaster that hit the state, has advised insurers thata flood mediation program is being reactivated.

Iowa's Flood Mediation Service program was initiated as anemergency response to the floods of 1993.

The Iowa Insurance Division said the mediation service willallow consumers who have a settlement dispute with their insurancecompany to utilize a mediator under contract with the division todetermine if any elements exist in their own case that would allowany additional payment amount in cases of homeowner claims forproperty losses involving floods.

Details on implementation of the program will be available in afew weeks, the agency said.

Ms. Voss announced she let insurers know that consumers are tobe given the benefit of the doubt in some cases involving sewerbackup and floods where there is no clear prohibition against doingso in the terms of their insurance policy.

Last month when the state was hit with tornadoes, it was notedMs. Voss asked insurers to ramp up their response activities andthey had complied.

“Now the floods have her attention, and she has again takenaggressive steps and asked for their cooperation,” the divisionsaid.

“Honestly, we're hearing good things about the industry responseto these disasters,” Commissioner Voss said. “They appear to havereally stepped up their service to their customers so far.

“We just want to make sure we're doing all that we can to makesure people are getting the benefits that are in the policies theypurchased. This is just a matter of doing the right thing. Webelieve we will get excellent cooperation on this.”

Since May, extreme rains that caused flooding throughout theMidwest have caused 42 counties in Iowa to be declared disasterareas and thousands have been forced to evacuate their homesbecause of the flooding.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has said the estimated damage bill fromthe flooding will be between $750 million and $1 billion.

State officials have called the Iowa flooding a 500-year eventwith damage to the infrastructure exceeding the mammoth floods of1993.