The Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced planned improvements to its claims appeals process for its National Flood Insurance Program, including clearer claim resolution letters.

FEMA said in a fact sheet issued Monday that “using feedback from our policyholders and Congress, we are acting to improve the process for flood insurance appeals.”

It said to ensure a more effective process, it is bringing together a team of insurance specialists, attorneys and analysts “to implement an easy-to-use process that will allow us to better engage with policyholders, guide policyholders through to resolution, and provide meaningful information to internal and external audiences.”

Robert Hartwig, president of the New York-based Insurance Information Institute Inc. and an economist, said in a statement, “The nearly 80 Write Your Own companies that participate in the National Flood Insurance Program have always supported sound improvements to the program as they seek to ensure that property owners impacted by floods receive all funds due to them as expeditiously as possible. Insurers will continue to support program enhancements in the future.”

Among the changes that will be effective Dec. 31, 2016, claims resolutions letters must clearly list any full or partial denial amounts, and explain how to appeal if desired. It said claims resolution letters have been unclear, so policyholders were unsure when to appeal.

Among other changes:

• There will be a dedicated FEMA point of contact to help policyholders through the process, which has not been the case.

• Direct communication with FEMA will be by policyholders’ preference, either by phone, email and/or writing, whereas there has been only been indirect communication with FEMA by writing only.

• Rather than requiring appeals to be filed with all supporting information within 60 days of the claim letter, appeals will remain open until all information is collected to reach a final decision.

• Instead of unclear appeals resolutions, there will be a final decision memo for every appeal that fully explains how the claim was resolved.