Report Summarizes Science Study Findings from Columbia University (Fema Phase-out? Catastrophic Extremes Challenge Decentralization of Us Flood Insurance): Science

2026 SEP 16 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at NewsRx Policy and Law Daily -- Fresh data on Science are presented in a new report. According to news reporting out of New York City, New York, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “The U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) faces growing solvency and affordability challenges amid proposals to decentralize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and shift disaster management to states.”

Financial supporters for this research include National Science Foundation (NSF), NSF | National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Columbia University, “Catastrophic floods often span state boundaries, exposing multiple decentralized insurance pools simultaneously. Using a path-independent simulation framework that integrates risk-based premiums, hydrometeorologically clustered flood losses, and 2025 reinsurance contracts, we evaluate the stability of national and state-level pooling using historical data. National pooling markedly reduces systemic insolvency through cross-regional diversification, while many state pools exhibit structural fragility. State-level deficits are dominated by hyperclusters-coherent spatiotemporal losses induced by common atmospheric drivers-indicating that clustered loss governs failure. Since states must balance budgets and face borrowing restrictions to cover large losses, pool liquidity constrains decentralized systems. Existing reinsurance (including insurance-linked securities) does not always cover these clustered losses due to its misalignment with the clustered, spatiotemporal nature of hydroclimatic risk, covering only single flood events in traditional contracts and individual named storms in FloodSmart catastrophe bonds.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “A resilient and affordable NFIP will require hybrid financial design aligning risk-based premiums and reinsurance to balance chronic and catastrophic risk.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Fema Phase-out? Catastrophic Extremes Challenge Decentralization of Us Flood Insurance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2026;123(34). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences can be contacted at: Natl Acad Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20418, USA. (National Academy of Sciences - http://www.nasonline.org/; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - http://www.nasonline.org/publications/pnas/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Adam Nayak, Columbia University, Dept. of Earth and Environmental Engineering, New York, NY 10027, United States. Additional authors for this research include Mengjie Zhang, Pierre Gentine and Upmanu Lall.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2537388123. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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