Recap: A Conversation with David Maurstad: Navigating the Future of Floodplain Management and the NFIP

Forerunner hosted a special Q&A with David Maurstad - former senior FEMA leader and NFIP executive - moderated by Forerunner’s CEO, JT White. The conversation looked past headlines to what moves resilience forward: communicating risk clearly, aligning incentives with outcomes, and empowering local governments.

From redefining how program success should be measured to addressing structural challenges in risk pricing, community incentives, and governance, several themes stood out as particularly important for practitioners and policymakers alike.

NFIP’s purpose and how success is understood. David traced the program’s origins as a way to encourage stronger local floodplain management, noting that many in the field look at outcomes like reduced disaster suffering and property damage in addition to financial indicators.

Risk as a continuum, not a line. He described ongoing movement from a single 1% annual-chance boundary toward a community-wide, graduated view of risk. The discussion touched on minimum standards, risk communication, resilient infrastructure, and options for households facing the highest exposure (including protection or relocation pathways).

The NFIP’s Pricing Approach: advancing equity and ongoing implementation work. David noted that the intent behind property-level pricing was to address inequities that had long existed in the program—for example, ensuring that lower-value homes weren’t overpaying relative to higher-value ones. The discussion also touched on the need for ongoing attention to outreach/education, policy retention in the early years of the program, the cadence of base-rate reviews, and how private flood insurance is evolving in parallel.

CRS and mandatory purchase: aligning incentives with outcomes. He explored aligning Community Rating System activities to measurable risk reduction (such as higher regulatory standards like freeboard) and discussed ideas for benefits that extend beyond premium discounts (e.g., disaster cost-share advantages). He also outlined ongoing conversations in the field about the mandatory purchase requirement and potential alternatives (such as opt-out at sale or shared responsibility among owners, lenders, and agents).

Capacity, coordination, and data: David underscored the importance of sustained coordination among federal, state, and local partners, along with steady investment in mapping and future flood-risk data. He noted that advisory and data efforts (including mapping and future-risk initiatives) are foundational for communicating risk and improving outcomes.

Local floodplain management roles: He emphasized the central role of local floodplain managers- who handle ordinance enforcement, permitting, mapping interpretation, records, outreach, and mitigation linkages-and highlighted the value of resourcing this work alongside other core public-safety functions.

The discussion underscored that NFIP modernization is not just about insurance, but about redefining success, building local capacity, aligning incentives with resilience, and equipping communities with better data, stronger partnerships, and communication tools.

The webinar recording can be viewed below:

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