Potential Flood-Related Financial Loss Exceeds Current Estimations

Photo credit: TSGT Oscar M. Sanchez, CC BY-ND 2.0

Homeowners and renters alike may be familiar with the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA)’s Flood Maps, which provide a visual representation of a community’s flood risk. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is managed by FEMA, uses community flood risks gathered from FEMA maps to calculate insurance rates for its more than 5.1 million policyholders—policyholders who, by many accounts, used FEMA flood maps to calculate their potential risk and therefore inform policy-buying decisions in the first place.

Unfortunately, FEMA maps were created to represent risks at a community level, and consequently do not serve as an accurate measure of risk for individual properties. The flood risk research nonprofit First Street Foundation uses modeling techniques to fill in these informational gaps, thereby establishing the first public collection of property-level flood risk data in the United States.

In a 2020 report, First Street Foundation’s team of researchers found that 14.6 million properties across America were characterized by substantial flood risk (a one-percent chance of annual flooding). Millions of these property owners may have been previously unaware of their risk because their properties were located outside of FEMA’s Special Flood Hazard Areas and were therefore excluded from FEMA Flood Maps.

In a study published last month, First Street Foundation noted that some property owners took steps to mitigate potential flood damage in 2020, thereby decreasing the number of residential properties at risk of unmitigated flood-related financial loss to 4.3 million. This decrease shows marked improvement for many properties once at unabated risk. Nonetheless, the February report makes it clear that underestimated flood risk remains a significant financial threat to millions of American households.

The discrepancy between supposed flood risk and actual flood risk is evidenced by substantial difference between premium flood insurance rates and estimated financial costs to properties as a result of flooding events. The average NFIP premium for the 5.7 million American properties with any flood risk is $902, while the average estimated loss for these same properties is $3,343 per year. This means that the current economic risk to 5.7 million properties is 3.7 times higher than the NFIP’s insurance pricing. The disparity continues to grow as sampled data is limited to the 4.3 million properties with substantial flood risk, where the average estimated annual loss of $4,419 is 4.5 times greater than the NFIP’s premium of $981.

The First Street Foundation’s February report highlights the need for increased flood risk awareness among American property owners and increased flood insurance coverage among insurers. As flood events become more widespread and intense due to climate change, America’s number of at-risk properties will continue to rise.

Visit FloodFactor.com to access current flood risk data for 142 million public and private properties. Click here to read the First Street Foundation’s February 2021 report.