Disaster Insurance

Archive Report

Demand for Federal Disaster Insurance

Heavy loss of life and extensive damage to property from floods in the Northeast in August and again in October 1955, and in the Far West in December, dramatized the absence of insurance protection against natural disasters. The tragedy involved in what the Red Cross has called “the worst disaster year in American history” impelled the Eisenhower administration and certain members of Congress to take steps toward developing some form of federal indemnity for losses for which commercial insurance coverage is not now available.

President Eisenhower said in his State of the Union message, Jan. 5, that “Disaster assistance legislation requires overhauling and an experimental program of flood damage indemnities should be undertaken.” The same day identical administration bills to set ...

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