Updated May 2026
Flood Risk in Gulf, FL
Gulf, FL has a Flood Risk Score of 32/100 (Grade B), ranking #21 of 3,277 counties nationwide. The risk level is Moderate. There have been 146 NFIP flood-insurance claims totaling $11,789,608 in payouts, with 30 federal disaster declarations on record.
Key Data
What the Grade Means Here
Gulf carries a B grade — modest but non-trivial flood risk. With a composite score of 32 and 146 NFIP claims on file, the county sits in the second-safest tier of the U.S. distribution (rank #21 of 3,277). Most insured loss here clusters in localized low-elevation neighborhoods or river-adjacent corridors rather than across the whole county.
Within Florida, Gulf runs 9 points above the state average composite score of 23 — meaningfully more flood-exposed than the typical county in the state. Rank: #11 of 68. The full Florida state profile shows how every county within the state compares.
What's Driving the Risk Score?
The single biggest driver of the composite score in this county is federal disaster frequency (25% of the formula, factor score 64). For Gulf, that means the cadence of federally declared flood-related disasters dominates — large enough events to exceed state and local response capacity have repeated multiple times.
The trend factor is high (100 of 100), meaning flood losses have been accelerating sharply in this county. That is the single most actionable signal in the score — recent risk is meaningfully greater than the long-run average suggests.
Score Breakdown
| Factor | Score | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Claims Density | 1 | 40% |
| Disaster Frequency | 64 | 25% |
| Claim Severity | 1 | 20% |
| Year-over-Year Trend | 100 | 15% |
How This Score Is Calculated
The composite is a weighted average of four FEMA-derived factors. Source data comes from the public FEMA flood-mapping program via the OpenFEMA API. For property-level decisions, layer this with the parcel's FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map zone and recent crest readings from USGS Water Data. Full math: methodology page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the flood risk in Gulf, FL?
Gulf, FL has a Flood Risk Score of 32/100 (Grade B), ranking #21 of 3,277 counties nationwide. The risk level is Moderate. There have been 146 NFIP flood-insurance claims totaling $11,789,608 in payouts, with 30 federal disaster declarations on record.
Is flood insurance required in Gulf?
Federal law requires flood insurance for any property in a Special Flood Hazard Area (FEMA Zone A or V) financed by a federally regulated lender. Gulf's county-wide composite score is 32 (Grade B), which is a county aggregate — your specific parcel's flood-zone designation comes from the FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) at fema.gov/flood-maps. Even when not legally required, NFIP coverage is often available for a few hundred dollars a year in moderate- and low-risk zones, and FEMA reports more than 25% of all NFIP claims come from outside high-risk zones.
What is driving the flood risk score in Gulf?
The single biggest driver of the composite score in this county is federal disaster frequency (25% of the formula, factor score 64). For Gulf, that means the cadence of federally declared flood-related disasters dominates — large enough events to exceed state and local response capacity have repeated multiple times.
Is flood risk increasing or decreasing in Gulf?
The trend factor is high (100 of 100), meaning flood losses have been accelerating sharply in this county. That is the single most actionable signal in the score — recent risk is meaningfully greater than the long-run average suggests.
How does Gulf compare to other counties in Florida?
Within Florida, Gulf runs 9 points above the state average composite score of 23 — meaningfully more flood-exposed than the typical county in the state. Rank: #11 of 68.
Where does this data come from?
Every figure on this page comes from FEMA's public OpenFEMA API — the DisasterDeclarationsSummaries v2 endpoint (federally declared flood-related disasters) and the FimaNfipClaims endpoint (individual NFIP flood-insurance claims aggregated by county FIPS code). Both are public-domain U.S. government work. Real-time stream-gauge readings that complement these federal aggregates live at USGS Water Data. Last updated 2026-05-16.
Gulf, FL has a Flood Risk Score of 32/100 (Grade B), ranking #21 of 3,277 counties nationwide. The risk level is Moderate. There have been 146 NFIP flood-insurance claims totaling $11,789,608 in payouts, with 30 federal disaster declarations on record.
This answer pulls from FEMA OpenFEMA datasets including the National Flood Hazard Layer and NFIP claims, the authoritative federal source for U.S. flood risk, NFIP claims, and disaster declarations. The headline number above is the direct answer; what follows is the additional context most readers need to use the answer for a real decision rather than just a fact lookup.
For readers turning this answer into action: cross-reference against the underlying FEMA OpenFEMA datasets including the National Flood Hazard Layer and NFIP claims record before acting on time-sensitive decisions. The site renders the data as it was published; subsequent revisions can shift the picture, and the live federal data is always the authoritative current reference.