The National Flood Insurance Program is operating today, and its authority to write new flood insurance contracts runs out on December 11, 2026, a date that is still in the future. Policies already in force are not cancelled when that authority ends; they continue through the end of their one-year terms. A Congressional Research Service report updated September 11, 2026 sets out what a lapse would and would not stop, and it cites a figure from June 2010, when more than 1,400 home-sale closings a day were canceled or delayed.
What the December 11 date actually ends
According to the Congressional Research Service report, titled “What Happens If the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Lapses?”, the most recent short-term reauthorization, P.L. 119-103, extends the program through December 11, 2026. If Congress does not act by then, the authority to issue new flood insurance contracts expires. Existing policies continue through their one-year terms.
The report adds two financial effects. The program’s borrowing authority would fall from $30.425 billion to $1 billion. FEMA would keep adjusting and paying claims from incoming premiums, but unpaid claims would accumulate if those funds ran short and Congress did not step in.
Where each claim in this article comes from
The December 11 date, the lapse effects and the 2010 figure all come from one document, the CRS report, as reproduced on EveryCRSReport.com, a mirror of Congressional Research Service publications. That makes the source institutional and congressional, not FEMA-direct. Attempts to corroborate the date on official pages did not succeed: FEMA’s congressional-reauthorization page returned a 403 error to the automated reader, and the congress.gov copy of the CRS product is closed to automated readers by its robots rules. The expiration date is therefore reported here as the CRS report states it and has not been independently confirmed on a FEMA or congressional page.
The 2010 figure belongs to 2010
The report says that during the June 2010 lapse, “over 1,400 home sale closings were canceled or delayed each day,” which it puts at more than 40,000 sales a month, with residential properties counted and commercial transactions also affected. The CRS report attributes that figure to an academic journal article. It describes what happened in one past month, under conditions of that month. It is a historical measurement and not a forecast: nothing in the report projects the same number of closings for a December 2026 lapse.
A program that has lapsed before, repeatedly
The same report counts 36 short-term reauthorizations enacted since the end of fiscal year 2017. It also records two recent lapses: from October 1 to November 12, 2025, and from February 1 to 3, 2026. The pattern of brief extensions is the setting for the December date, and the report says the largest Write Your Own insurer left the program in 2011 because of the administrative burden of repeated short extensions and lapses.
The program’s size explains why those gaps draw attention. The CRS report puts the program at approximately 4.5 million flood insurance policies providing nearly $1.3 trillion in coverage across 22,700 communities. Those in-force policies are the part of the program the report says continues through their one-year terms at a lapse.
The cost of short extensions, in the report’s account
The report counts 36 short-term reauthorizations enacted since the end of fiscal year 2017, the latest being P.L. 119-103. It also lists two recent gaps in authority: October 1 to November 12, 2025, and February 1 to 3, 2026. Those lapses are the report’s own evidence that the program has gone without authority before, and the December 11 date sits at the end of the same pattern of short extensions.
The report also records a lasting effect of that pattern. The largest Write Your Own insurer left the program in 2011, which the report attributes to the administrative burdens of repeated short extensions and lapses. Neither the departure nor the 2010 closings figure is offered as a prediction for this December.
What the report leaves open
The report does not predict whether Congress will pass another extension before December 11, and it does not forecast how many closings a 2026 lapse would affect. It draws one clear line: the authority to issue new contracts would end, and existing policies would run on through their terms. A reader who takes the 2010 number as a prediction would be applying a measurement from one past month to a lapse the report describes only in terms of authority, borrowing limits and claims payments.
The report puts the stakes in its own terms: roughly 4.5 million policies carrying nearly $1.3 trillion in coverage, and a borrowing authority that would shrink to $1 billion. The Congressional Research Service is the named source for each of those figures, and for the December 11, 2026 date they surround.
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This article was prepared with AI assistance and checked against the cited Congressional Research Service report; figures and dates are taken from that document.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
