MetLife Auto & Home, an affiliate of US insurer MetLife, said that it has been approved by the National Flood Insurance Program to offer flood insurance.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was established by the US Congress in 1968, in response to the rising cost of taxpayer-funded disaster relief for flood victims and the increasing amount of damage caused by floods.

MetLife will provide flood insurance as part of the NFIP’s Write Your Own (WYO) program which was initiated in 1983 as a cooperative undertaking between the insurance industry and the Federal Insurance Administration. The WYO allows participating property and casualty companies to write and service the Standard Flood Insurance Policies in their own names.

Most standard homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage, even though flooding is nature’s most common peril, so this will allow us to offer a deeper level of protection to our customers, said Franklin Reid, assistant vice president overseeing the program for MetLife Auto & Home.