Twenty-eight condo flood policies in the whole state
Twenty-eight condo flood policies in the whole state
2026-09-19 · South Dakota · Compliance
The National Flood Insurance Program's authorization runs out in eleven days, and South Dakota has almost nothing riding on it.
FEMA states the position on its own reauthorization page: “On Feb. 3, 2026, the president signed legislation passed by Congress that extends the National Flood Insurance Program's (NFIP's) authorization to Sept. 30, 2026,” and “Congress must now reauthorize the NFIP by no later than 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 30, 2026.”1
On what a lapse would do: “FEMA would still have authority to ensure the payment of valid claims with available funds. However, FEMA would stop selling and renewing policies for millions of properties in communities across the nation.”
The South Dakota numbers
Drawn from FEMA's own OpenFEMA policy dataset, as of the September 8, 2026 data release: approximately 2,537 active South Dakota policies, against roughly 3.53 million nationally — about seven hundredths of one percent of the national book.2
Broken down by condominium coverage code: two policies covering an entire condominium building, twenty-six low-rise condominium policies, twenty-one unit-owner policies, and 2,488 not condominium at all.
So: twenty-eight condominium-building flood policies in the entire state, plus twenty-one unit policies.
These are counts derived from active termination dates in the public dataset rather than FEMA's published policies-in-force figure, so they are approximations. They are not approximations that could be wrong by an order of magnitude.
What a lapse would actually do to those twenty-eight
Less than the headline suggests. Policies in force continue to their expiry, and the thirty-day grace period still runs. Claims still get paid from available funds. What stops is the writing of new policies and the processing of renewals.
The consequence is therefore transactional rather than catastrophic: a South Dakota condominium building in a special flood hazard area that needs a Residential Condominium Building Association Policy renewed during a lapse cannot get it renewed until Congress acts, and a unit sale requiring proof of flood coverage stalls.
The 2025 precedent is instructive on duration. Authorization lapsed at the start of October 2025 with the shutdown and was restored retroactively when the shutdown ended in mid-November, carrying the program to January 30, 2026, before the February extension to September 30. FEMA's own page does not narrate that lapse, so those dates come from secondary reporting rather than the agency.
The coinsurance rule that has not changed
For the buildings that do carry an RCBAP, the eighty percent rule remains in the policy form. FEMA's glossary describes coinsurance as “a penalty imposed on the loss payment unless the amount of insurance carried on the damaged building is at least 80 percent of its replacement cost or the maximum amount of insurance available for that building under the NFIP, whichever is less.”
Risk Rating 2.0 changed how flood policies are priced. It did not repeal that clause, and no FEMA instrument was found doing so. An association insuring its building below the eighty percent threshold has a proportional reduction waiting at claim time — the same structural trap as underinsuring a master property policy, discussed on our insurance requirements page.
Why the small number is the story
Because it tells a South Dakota board where to put its attention. Twenty-eight condominium buildings statewide carry flood coverage. The hazard that actually empties reserves here falls from the sky in June and is measured in inches of ice.
South Dakota ranks seventh nationally for hail damage on the figures our piece on the Division of Insurance sets out, and the state's insurance regulator has never issued a bulletin about it. Meanwhile the requirement that did change for South Dakota condominiums this year came from the secondary mortgage market: a $50,000 per-unit master deductible cap effective for loan applications from July 1, 2026, which in hail country is the binding constraint.
A federal flood program expiring in eleven days is a genuine national story. In South Dakota it touches twenty-eight buildings, and the exposure that touches all of them is uninsured against by a program nobody is debating.
One thing worth confirming rather than assuming
A property does not need to be in a mapped flood zone to flood, and the low policy count partly reflects that South Dakota's mapped special flood hazard areas are limited rather than that its buildings are safe. Lender-required coverage follows the map; water does not.
What to watch next
September 30. If Congress extends again, nothing changes for the twenty-eight. If it lapses, the effect in this state will be measured in delayed closings rather than in uninsured losses — and the restoration, on the 2025 pattern, would be retroactive.
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