Menendez Gets FEMA Commitment to Review Additional Sandy Flood Insurance Claims, Reform NFIP

Statement

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez tonight spoke directly with Brad Kieserman, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) point person for resolving Sandy victims' claims of being lowballed by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

"In what was, in my opinion, a very frank and productive conversation, Mr. Kieserman made a personal commitment to me that FEMA will take aggressive steps to make sure victims of Superstorm Sandy get every penny to which they're entitled. Importantly, that means creating a process to not just review cases in litigation, but all cases in New Jersey where there were questionable practices. He also committed to fundamentally reform the claims process so these egregious bad practices are never again repeated.

"Mr. Kieserman also assured me that he would take steps to ban any engineering firm or insurance company that acted in bad faith or committed outright fraud from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). I'm encouraged by these positive steps, but will adhere to the principle of "trust, but verify' as I continue to oversee the reforms which will also be guided by the Task Force I have established.

"It's been well over two years since Sandy struck, but sadly the pain and suffering lingers for families struggling to rebuild their lives. The fight for justice and fairness for Sandy victims is far from over. I will hold FEMA's feet to the fire until every single Sandy survivor gets what they are entitled to and critical reforms are enacted to ensure this never happens again to disaster victims."

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