Subsequent losses include all losses in ensuing years to the cohort of substantially damaged properties after being first substantially damaged. The table also includes summaries of NFIP payments for previous years, the immediate year and subsequent years for each year cohort of substantially damaged properties. This total is 26 percent of all payments for repetitive loss properties and 10.6 percent of all NFIP payments over the period. If FEMA enforced regulations on substantial damages one would expect losses and payments in years following substantial damage to be significantly less than in years before substantial damage. However, Table 3.VIII shows the total number of subsequent losses to substantially damaged properties increased slightly, by 0.5 percent from 9,523 to 9,568.
Inflation obviously accounts for some of the increase in costs.
However, in FEMA's 1989 study of substantial damages, the agency had already recognized there were numerous instances of repetitive substantial damages , that had resulted in increased subsequent costs, including cases of properties that had suffered substantial damage on two or three separate occasions between 1978 and 1988. In the 1989 study, the agency did not offer a definitive explanation as to why the structures were not elevated or floodproofed after the initial substantial damage occurred, as required by FEMA's regulations. In fact, in some cases, the property value doubled and even tripled during the interim, apparently as a result of significant improvements made to the structures. Typically, because of these increases in property value and coverage, the losses and claims paid from the second and third substantial damages were greater than the initial losses. All rights reserved.