Letter: 'Duplicate' FEMA payment complex
People clean up debris from a destroyed home on Shore Road in Lindenhurst on Nov. 4, 2012 in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. Credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara
This is in response to "Will FEMA never learn from disaster mistakes?" [Editorial, Nov. 3].
The duplication of benefits issue with the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not as simple as people seem to assume. It isn't as simple as merely checking to see whether a FEMA grant recipient also has private insurance.
The Stafford Act, which is the controlling law for the FEMA grant program, allows for the release of benefits to individuals with insurance as long as they have not yet received insurance proceeds at the time the benefits are applied for.
The grant program is designed to help individuals very shortly after a major disaster, and before insurance companies get to the property for a first inspection. It would defeat the purpose of the program to limit it to only individuals without insurance.
Also, even if an individual has private insurance, that doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a duplication of benefits. The private insurance must cover the identical items that the FEMA grant money covered. For example, if an individual received grant money to repair a home and also had an insurance policy that covered landscaping, there would be no duplication.
As an attorney who has handled many FEMA appeals asking for grant money back, I've seen more cases in which FEMA has erred in classifying a payment as duplicative than homeowners.
Daniel Strafer, Central Islip
Editor's note: The writer is a staff attorney at Touro Law Center's Disaster Relief Clinic.
