Attacking the Risk Crisis: Roadmap to Investment in Flood Resilience

As part of its attack on the risk crisis, Triple-I recently participated in a project led by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) to develop a roadmap for mitigation investment incentives. The Resilience Incentivization Roadmap 2.0 builds off research NIBS published in 2019 and focuses on urban pluvial flooding, though many of the principles can be applied to riverine and coastal flooding, as well as non-flood perils.

The roadmap draws heavily from voluntary programs that have seen success in the context of other risks – such as the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) FORTIFIED Homeâ„¢ Standard and the California Earthquake Authority’s Brace + Bolt retrofit program.

‘Pluvial urban flooding’ refers to rainwater that can’t flow downhill fast enough to reach streams and stormwater systems and therefore backs up into buildings. Much of the inland flooding caused by Hurricane Ida (2021), Hurricane Ian (2022), and more recent flooding in California due to ‘atmospheric rivers’ and in the Northeast would fall under this category. Common low-cost measures exist to protect buildings from such flooding, and the relative ease and affordability of such mitigations made pluvial urban flooding an appropriate initial target.