Findings and purposes

(a) Findings The Congress finds that— (1) the United States has a history of catastrophic natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, flood, fire, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; (2) although catastrophic natural disasters occur infrequently, their costs are likely to escalate in the coming years, in part because of the intensifying impacts of climate change, coastal development patterns, and increasing property values along the hurricane-prone or earthquake-vulnerable coastlines of the United States; (3) such disasters present physical risk to assets, publicly traded securities, private investments, and companies; (4) as the risk of catastrophe losses grows, so do the risks that any premiums collected by private insurers for extending coverage will be insufficient to cover future catastrophes, and private insurers, to protect their shareholders and policyholders (in the case of mutually owned companies), have thus significantly raised premiums and curtailed insurance coverage in States exposed to major catastrophes; (5) such effects on the insurance industry have been harmful to economic activity in States exposed to major catastrophes and have placed significant burdens on residents of such States and the Federal Government; and (6) under the current disaster risk management system, the Federal Government and, hence, taxpayers pay for rebuilding through government grants and low-interest loans. (b) Purposes The purposes of this Act are to establish a program to provide Federal support for State-sponsored insurance programs to help homeowners prepare for and recover from the damages caused by natural catastrophes, to encourage mitigation and prevention for such catastrophes, to promote the use of private market capital as a means to insure against such catastrophes, to expedite the payment of claims and better assist in the financial recovery from such catastrophes.