Updated May 2026
Counties with the Highest Flood Insurance Payouts
The 100 U.S. counties where FEMA has paid out the most in NFIP flood insurance claims. Ranked using FEMA NFIP claim and federal disaster-declaration data from the public OpenFEMA API.
What This Ranking Tells You
Where the federal flood-insurance system has actually paid out the most dollars is a different question from where claims are most numerous. Harris leads on total payouts at $1,030,942,000. Hurricane Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, and Ian dominate the all-time payout leaderboard, which is why the geographic mix here ranges across Louisiana, Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Florida (TX, FL, LA).
Combined NFIP payouts across the top 10 counties total $3,276,588,448 — the dollar weight of the federal flood-insurance program is enormously concentrated. Most of these counties absorbed the bulk of their losses in a small number of single events: Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Ida, Ian. That is why FEMA's Risk Rating 2.0 reform pushed toward more risk-based premiums in coastal high-loss zones.
Top 100 by Total Payouts
Grade mix across this list: 0 F · 1 D · 2 C · 55 B · 42 A. Click any county for the full profile, including the four factor scores that feed the composite, the full claim and disaster history, and the active NFIP policy count.
| # | County | State | Grade | Score | Total Payouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harris | TX | D | 74 | $1,030,942,000 |
| 2 | Lee | FL | C | 60 | $589,244,056 |
| 3 | Pinellas | FL | C | 55 | $571,011,087 |
| 4 | East Baton Rouge | LA | B | 33 | $190,425,166 |
| 5 | Hillsborough | FL | B | 37 | $178,415,352 |
| 6 | Collier | FL | B | 39 | $169,426,283 |
| 7 | Jefferson | TX | A | 18 | $155,771,904 |
| 8 | Galveston | TX | B | 21 | $145,478,114 |
| 9 | Sarasota | FL | B | 36 | $123,514,856 |
| 10 | Livingston | LA | B | 29 | $122,359,630 |
| 11 | Orange | TX | A | 15 | $105,852,250 |
| 12 | Manatee | FL | B | 35 | $101,211,078 |
| 13 | Pasco | FL | B | 32 | $85,309,555 |
| 14 | Volusia | FL | B | 33 | $82,572,477 |
| 15 | Montgomery | TX | A | 16 | $74,056,455 |
| 16 | Charlotte | FL | B | 32 | $72,288,677 |
| 17 | Brazoria | TX | A | 18 | $72,145,903 |
| 18 | Fort Bend | TX | A | 15 | $68,019,840 |
| 19 | St. John the Baptist | LA | B | 39 | $66,917,398 |
| 20 | Broward | FL | B | 33 | $62,071,421 |
| 21 | Monroe | FL | B | 21 | $58,216,218 |
| 22 | Citrus | FL | B | 28 | $56,105,228 |
| 23 | Ascension | LA | B | 29 | $56,026,457 |
| 24 | Miami-Dade | FL | A | 20 | $40,405,886 |
| 25 | St. Johns | FL | A | 18 | $37,759,798 |
| 26 | Lafayette | LA | B | 22 | $35,619,716 |
| 27 | Craven | NC | B | 29 | $35,379,498 |
| 28 | Horry | SC | A | 16 | $32,263,498 |
| 29 | Hardin | TX | A | 10 | $29,641,603 |
| 30 | Calcasieu | LA | B | 36 | $27,506,631 |
| 31 | Jefferson | LA | B | 40 | $26,936,704 |
| 32 | Duval | FL | A | 15 | $25,657,204 |
| 33 | Bay | FL | A | 19 | $25,575,790 |
| 34 | St. Tammany | LA | B | 25 | $24,905,184 |
| 35 | Tangipahoa | LA | B | 25 | $23,849,399 |
| 36 | Nueces | TX | A | 16 | $22,913,365 |
| 37 | Baldwin | AL | B | 31 | $21,774,563 |
| 38 | Cameron | TX | B | 24 | $21,389,015 |
| 39 | Westchester | NY | B | 26 | $20,199,162 |
| 40 | Orleans | LA | A | 20 | $19,207,876 |
| 41 | Charleston | SC | A | 14 | $18,498,855 |
| 42 | Escambia | FL | B | 32 | $17,834,098 |
| 43 | Hidalgo | TX | A | 15 | $17,357,973 |
| 44 | St. Louis | MO | A | 13 | $17,174,100 |
| 45 | Hernando | FL | B | 27 | $15,890,480 |
| 46 | Bergen | NJ | B | 24 | $15,112,369 |
| 47 | Ouachita | LA | A | 18 | $14,993,935 |
| 48 | Liberty | TX | A | 13 | $14,140,267 |
| 49 | Chambers | TX | B | 24 | $13,580,950 |
| 50 | Buncombe | NC | B | 22 | $12,855,003 |
| 51 | Somerset | NJ | B | 24 | $12,695,147 |
| 52 | Pender | NC | B | 28 | $12,194,565 |
| 53 | Beaufort | SC | A | 10 | $11,835,834 |
| 54 | Gulf | FL | B | 32 | $11,789,608 |
| 55 | Flagler | FL | A | 14 | $11,253,292 |
| 56 | Montgomery | PA | A | 19 | $11,129,449 |
| 57 | Union | NJ | A | 11 | $11,117,289 |
| 58 | Aransas | TX | A | 14 | $10,924,112 |
| 59 | Orange | FL | B | 27 | $10,700,873 |
| 60 | Richland | SC | A | 9 | $10,427,354 |
| 61 | Carteret | NC | A | 14 | $10,209,843 |
| 62 | St. Charles | LA | B | 38 | $10,115,821 |
| 63 | Hays | TX | A | 6 | $9,930,165 |
| 64 | Clay | FL | B | 25 | $9,825,148 |
| 65 | Robeson | NC | A | 15 | $9,718,448 |
| 66 | Dare | NC | A | 16 | $9,644,496 |
| 67 | Virginia Beach | VA | A | 7 | $9,561,411 |
| 68 | Essex | NJ | B | 25 | $9,530,407 |
| 69 | Cameron | LA | B | 26 | $8,981,238 |
| 70 | Vermilion | LA | B | 22 | $8,718,756 |
| 71 | Brunswick | NC | A | 16 | $8,501,167 |
| 72 | Wharton | TX | B | 24 | $8,416,878 |
| 73 | Chatham | GA | A | 8 | $8,265,137 |
| 74 | Jefferson | KY | A | 6 | $8,135,939 |
| 75 | Fairfield | CT | B | 24 | $7,779,647 |
| 76 | Levy | FL | A | 19 | $7,717,244 |
| 77 | New Hanover | NC | A | 15 | $7,676,614 |
| 78 | Nassau | NY | B | 25 | $7,338,653 |
| 79 | Georgetown | SC | A | 16 | $7,328,570 |
| 80 | Middlesex | NJ | B | 23 | $7,291,325 |
| 81 | Santa Rosa | FL | B | 32 | $7,256,229 |
| 82 | Duplin | NC | A | 18 | $7,137,442 |
| 83 | Passaic | NJ | B | 23 | $6,908,402 |
| 84 | Waller | TX | B | 24 | $6,894,839 |
| 85 | Seminole | FL | B | 25 | $6,759,946 |
| 86 | Honolulu | HI | A | 13 | $6,715,939 |
| 87 | Polk | FL | B | 22 | $6,428,134 |
| 88 | Whatcom | WA | B | 23 | $6,335,974 |
| 89 | Pamlico | NC | B | 21 | $6,234,711 |
| 90 | Davidson | TN | A | 12 | $6,174,067 |
| 91 | Suffolk | NY | A | 20 | $6,039,859 |
| 92 | Queens | NY | B | 23 | $5,980,737 |
| 93 | Washington | VT | B | 24 | $5,762,469 |
| 94 | Hyde | NC | B | 28 | $5,554,032 |
| 95 | Rapides | LA | B | 25 | $5,536,484 |
| 96 | Travis | TX | A | 10 | $5,473,814 |
| 97 | Acadia | LA | A | 18 | $5,418,050 |
| 98 | Lafourche | LA | B | 38 | $5,301,043 |
| 99 | Taylor | FL | B | 21 | $5,280,438 |
| 100 | Glynn | GA | A | 8 | $5,194,706 |
How These Ranks Are Calculated
The composite flood risk score combines four normalized factors — claims density (40%), disaster frequency (25%), claim severity (20%), and year-over-year trend (15%). Where this ranking uses a single direct metric (claims, payouts, disasters, or policies), counties are sorted by that field alone. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA (DisasterDeclarationsSummaries v2 and FimaNfipClaims). Full methodology: methodology page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is "Total Payouts" measured for this ranking?
For this ranking, counties are ordered by total payouts drawn directly from FEMA OpenFEMA data — either NFIP claims totals, claim payouts, federal disaster declarations, active policies, or the four-factor composite score. Tied counties keep their natural alphabetical order. The composite-score formula and per-factor weights are documented on the methodology page.
Why are the same states dominating multiple rankings?
A small number of states — typically Louisiana, Texas, Florida, New York, and New Jersey — appear repeatedly across the riskiest-counties, most-claims, and highest-payouts lists. The cause is the same: hurricane and tropical-storm exposure puts a large share of the housing stock within reach of storm surge, and federally mandated flood-insurance rules in Special Flood Hazard Areas concentrate NFIP take-up there.
Does a high ranking mean every property in that county is at risk?
No. Rankings are county-level aggregates, and flood risk varies sharply within a single county. A coastal county can post huge claim totals from a few low-elevation neighborhoods while most of its land sits well above any flood crest. Always layer this with the parcel-level FEMA flood-zone designation from fema.gov/flood-maps.
How current is this ranking?
Rankings are recomputed every time the underlying FEMA dataset refreshes from the OpenFEMA API. The current dataset covers 3.3K counties, 100K NFIP claims, and was last updated on 2026-05-16.
Where does the underlying data come from?
Two FEMA datasets: DisasterDeclarationsSummaries v2 (federally declared disasters filtered to flood-related types) and FimaNfipClaims (individual NFIP claims aggregated by county FIPS code). Both are public-domain U.S. government work, distributed through the OpenFEMA API. Real-time stream-gauge context that complements the federal aggregates is at waterdata.usgs.gov.
Counties with the Highest Flood Insurance Payouts: top 100 U.S. counties ranked by total payouts from FEMA NFIP and disaster-declaration data.