Insurers Lobby For Gulf Building Codes

Regulators and insurers said they are pushing for enactment of new building codes in Mississippi and the extension of Florida coastal codes in the Panhandle area.

On Jan. 1, a new statewide building code took effect in Louisiana, the state hardest hit by the three major hurricanes last year.

In pushing for the code, Insurance Commissioner Robert Wooley said his experience of visiting Florida in 2004 after Hurricane Charley convinced him of its merits.

“I visited Florida neighborhoods and saw where homes built pre-Andrew and pre-uniform building codes once stood and were destroyed,” he said. “Across the street, homes built to code, post-Andrew, stood with minimal damage with no citizens displaced.”

Florida lawmakers will attempt to extend that coastal building code to the Panhandle, devastated by Hurricane Ivan last year.

In Mississippi, lawmakers will attempt to pass into law a statewide building code in time for the heart of the rebuilding effort set to take place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Neal Alldredge, state advocacy director for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, estimated that about half of the states today currently have a statewide building code.

“This is a great loss mitigation tool because it works,” he said.

But codes still face opposition from some builders and local governments that believe this could be one more so-called “unfunded mandate” thrust upon them, Mr. Alldredge said.

That is why funding for enforcement is an important part of the Mississippi legislation, he said.

Meanwhile, the effort to discourage building in flood zones will take place in Washington, where Mr. Alldredge said reform of the National Flood Insurance Program is underway that could include raising policy limits and measures to avoid funding certain areas over and over again.