Newly released report from the Office of the Inspector General at DHS is critical of expenditures for FL hurricane relief. See FEMA Insurance Reviews of Applicants Receiving Public Assistance Grant Funds for 2004 and 2005 Florida Hurricanes Were Not Adequate. Some excerpts:

The quality of FEMA’s insurance reviews in Florida was not adequate to maximize insurance available under applicants’ policies and to ensure that duplication of benefits did not occur. FEMA’s Florida Recovery Office knew about these deficiencies in its insurance review process but did not correct them. As a result, FEMA may have funded up to $177 million that insurance should have covered.

Furthermore, FEMA’s insurance specialists routinely waived the requirement to obtain and maintain insurance for future disasters, even though they did not have the authority to take such action. FEMA’s Florida Recovery Office did not detect and correct this deficiency. As a result, FEMA potentially stands to lose up to a billion dollars in future Florida disasters because many Florida communities may not have adequate insurance coverage for future disasters such as those that occurred in 2004 and 2005.