Who knew?  Members of Congress want to be insurance agents.  Perhaps they are jealous of all the attention lavished on the gecko, the duck, and Flo. In 2012, the wannabe congressional insurance agents wrote a new flood insurance policy.  It's been around for a long time, and mandatory for everyone in a flood zone.  But the low premiums, subsidized by the taxpayers, don’t bring in enough money to build up the reserves to pay the claims when the big one hits.  So the taxpayers come to the rescue and bail out the program, of course at the same time helping fellow citizens who are in need. In theory, the flood insurance program is going to pay back the rescue money.  But at the moment, it is $24 billion in the hole. So in 2012, our wannabe agents decided to put the flood insurance program on a sound actuarial footing.  ("Actuarial" is a nice insurance word.  They used it a lot in 2012.) They passed the Biggert-Waters...(Read Full Post)