Picayune Times: In 2009 GAO found 2/3 of flood insurance premiums went to private insurers..

Do private insurers get too much of your flood insurance premiums? 

As Congress considers what do about sharply inflated flood insurance premiums for some constituents as a result of the 2012 Biggert-Waters Act, it might want to revisit a 2009 report by Government Accountability Office.

The report said two-thirds of the premiums collected by the program in the previous three years went to private insurance companies who administer the policies. It left no doubt that oversight of the payment for insurance company services should be improved -- i.e., made more cost efficient.

The report found that FEMA doesn't enforce audit requirements of the private companies that participate in the program and has no system for reviewing the information it does collect. It suggested that FEMA has no idea what it actually costs private companies to run the program, and uses an outdated standard in determining how much it pays them.

At the time, FEMA questioned some of the GAO findings, though it promised to make improvements. A FEMA official said late Friday that the agency has adopted six of the seven recommendations made by the GAO, the investigatory arm of Congress.