The Obama administration will ask Congress to raise the National Flood Insurance Program's borrowing authorityby more than $4 billion to $25 billion during the current lame-duck session, according to federal, state and industry officials. The current borrowing authority is $20.775 billion.

The administration will move promptly on the issue to ensure no repeat of what happened in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to Don Griffin, vice president of personal lines at the Property and Casualty Insurers Association of America and head of the industry's flood insurance coalition.

That was when the Federal Emergency Management Agency had to tell write-your-own companies to stop writing checks to pay claims because the NFIP was out of money and borrowing authority, Griffin said.

At the same time, Michael Chaney, Mike Cheney, Mississippi insurance commissioner and head for the flood insurance working group of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, said an informal survey of congressional delegations indicates concern in Congress about revisiting the program so soon after Congress just passed legislation in July extending the program until September 2017.

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