The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is continuing to implement the Grimm-Cassidy Substitute Amendment to the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014.

As a result, insurance companies will begin to issue refunds for applicable policyholders beginning Oct. 1, 2014, and all checks should be sent before Dec. 31, 2014.

The refunds will go to homeowners that paid higher flood insurance rates before Congress passed the Act and Pres. Obama signed it.

The Grimm-Cassidy Substitute Amendment to the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act (H.R. 3370) effectively lowers many flood insurance premium rates. It reinstates grandfathered rates, repeals the home sale/new policy rate increase trigger, provides refunds for people who bought pre-FIRM subsidized homes without being informed of rate increases and caps flood insurance rate increases, among other things.

Most flood insurance rates will still increase but at a slower rate than before.

Homebuyers already benefit from the Act. Effective May 1, people who purchased new homes after Biggert-Waters became law, or who didn’t have insurance before that date or whose insurance lapsed, were required to paid flood insurance premiums at the rate that was charged on Oct. 1, 2013.