Sec. 10. Engineering firm independence
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Part C of chapter 2 of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 ( 42 U.S.C. 4081 et seq.), as amended by the preceding provisions of this Act, is further amended by adding at the end the following new sections: In the case of an insurance company participating in the Write Your Own program (as such term is defined in section 100202 of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 ( 42 U.S.C. 4004 )) that engages any adjusting company or engineering company in the adjustment of a claim for losses resulting from structural damage to a property under a policy for flood insurance coverage made available under this title— no representative of the adjusting company or engineering company may visit the property before the expiration of the 30-day period beginning upon the date that the insurance company provides notice to the owner of the property that such adjusting or engineering company has been engaged, unless the owner, in writing, consents to an earlier visit; and if the policyholder submits to the insurance company written notice of disapproval of the adjusting or engineering company selected by such insurance company before a representative of the adjusting or engineering company first visits the property, such insurance company shall— within 30 days after the policyholder’s notification of such disapproval— submit to the Administrator notice of the policyholders notification of such disapproval; and submit to the policyholder a list of not less than three other adjusting or engineering companies, as the case may be, that are unaffiliated with the disapproved company to conduct the activities involved in adjusting such claim; and replace the original adjusting or engineering company with the company from such list selected by the policyholder, if the policyholder notifies the insurance company and the Administrator, in writing, of the policyholder’s selected company within 30 days after receiving the list required under subparagraph (A).
It shall be unlawful, in participating in the Write Your Own program (as such term is defined in section 100202 of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 ( 42 U.S.C. 4004 )), to engage in any act or practice that violates the independence of an engineering company or individual engineer providing engineering services in connection with flood insurance coverage made available under this title. For purposes of subsection (a), acts or practices that violate the independence of an engineering company or individual engineer shall include— the preparation or submission of any engineering report in connection with a claim for damages under flood insurance coverage in which a person with an interest in the award of such damages compensates, coerces, extorts, colludes, instructs, induces, bribes, or intimidates a person, engineering firm, or other entity responsible for assessing damages for the purpose of causing the damages assigned to be based on any factor other than the independent judgment of the engineering company or individual engineer; mischaracterizing, or suborning any mischaracterization of, the damages involved in any such claim; seeking to influence an engineer or otherwise to encourage a targeted value of damages in order to facilitate the making of a report; and withholding or threatening to withhold timely payment for an engineering report or for engineering services rendered.
The requirements of subsection
(b)shall not be construed as prohibiting an insurance company participating in the Write Your Own program, a claims adjusting company, or an engineering company from asking an engineer to undertake one or more of the following: Consider additional information. Provide further detail, substantiation, or explanation for an assessment of damages. Correct errors in an engineering report. No engineer engaged by an insurance company participating in the Write Your Own program to assess flood damages to a property covered by flood insurance made available under this title may have an ownership or financial interest in— such insurance company, any claims adjusting company, or any other company, other than the company that employs such engineer, that is connected with assessing such damages; or the property being assessed. An insurance company participating in the Write Your Own program which knows, upon or before submitting to the Administrator a claim for damages under flood insurance coverage made available under this title, of a violation of the independence standards under this section, may not submit such a claim unless the insurance company includes, together with such claim, a certification that the violation involved does not materially mistake the value of the damages and documentation to support such claim. .
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