Practice area
Selected expertise at the intersection of disaster risk, insurance, infrastructure resilience, and government policy and practice.
The practice
Climate Risk Advisors provides selected expert-witness and litigation-consulting services involving disaster risk, floodplain management, property and casualty insurance, infrastructure resilience, and government policy and practice.
Samantha A. Medlock brings more than 25 years of experience spanning local and regional floodplain management, national flood policy, the insurance and risk-finance sector, the White House, Congress, and senior leadership at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Her work is particularly suited to matters requiring an understanding not only of written policies and standards, but of how disaster-risk, floodplain, insurance, and resilience systems are developed, administered, and applied in practice.
Areas of expertise
Floodplain management and flood-risk reduction; FEMA programs and standards; National Flood Insurance Program policy and practices; flood mapping and floodways; land-use and development standards; repetitive-loss properties; mitigation; federal, state, and local floodplain-management practice; and Executive Order 13690 and the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard.
Property and casualty insurance; homeowners and flood insurance; NFIP and private flood insurance; insurance policy structures and market practices; underwriting; availability and affordability; residual markets and FAIR Plans; reinsurance; catastrophe bonds; parametric insurance; and catastrophe-risk financing.
Dam and levee risk; federal policies and standards; residual risk; public safety; flood-control infrastructure; and professional responsibility, liability frameworks, and risk allocation involving architecture, engineering, and design firms and practitioners.
Floodplain and hazard regulation; regulatory takings and property-rights issues; governmental flood-risk responsibilities and liability; land-use regulation; FEMA and federal disaster programs; disaster mitigation and resilience; and allocation of risk among public entities, property owners, design professionals, insurers, and other parties.
Selected qualifications
Medlock served as lead White House staff in the development of Executive Order 13690 establishing the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) and led development of the government-wide implementing guidance while serving at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
She served on the congressionally established National Committee on Levee Safety, co-authoring its recommendations to Congress and taking responsibility for recommendations concerning legal liabilities and professional responsibilities affecting architecture, engineering, and design firms and practitioners.
Her insurance experience includes leadership of the White House Insurance Partnership, development of catastrophe-risk financing and risk-transfer approaches at Willis Towers Watson, senior FEMA responsibility for resilience strategy, and current advisory work addressing property-insurance availability, affordability, mitigation, and market stability.
Medlock has twice provided invited testimony before Congress on flood risk, levee safety, FEMA flood mapping, the National Flood Insurance Program, mitigation, repetitive-loss properties, insurance affordability, and federal flood policy.
She holds a Juris Doctor and is a Certified Floodplain Manager. She is not admitted to practice law and does not provide legal representation.
Litigation experience
Medlock provided expert analysis in Columbia Venture, LLC v. Richland County, a dispute involving floodplain regulation, FEMA flood mapping, NFIP requirements, levee-related flood risk, and regulatory-takings issues.
The county attorney subsequently invited the Association of State Floodplain Managers to participate as amicus curiae, and Medlock authored ASFPM’s brief before the South Carolina Supreme Court. Richland County prevailed, and the Court’s opinion adopted reasoning consistent with significant arguments advanced in the amicus brief. Two months following delivery of the opinion, the Congaree River burst its banks and flooded the entire parcel at issue in the case.
Engagements
Climate Risk Advisors accepts selected engagements as a consulting expert or testifying expert, including early case assessment, technical and policy analysis, document review, expert reports, deposition preparation, and testimony where appropriate.
Engagements are considered subject to conflicts review and fit with the requested scope of expertise.
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