Analyzing FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Data With DuckDB

Author: Mark Bauer

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Notebooks
• 3. Data
• 4. Additional Resources
  • FEMA
  • Academic Research
  • NFIP Redacted Claims & Policies Analysis
  • Community Open Data
  • Other
• 5. Say Hello!

Note: This analysis uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

Read more about OpenFEMA's Terms and Conditions.

Data as of 05-04-2025.

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Table xx. Number and Amount Paid on NFIP Claims (both in millions). Total amount paid, in this analysis, is defined as the total amount paid for all Building, Contents, and Increased Cost of Compliance (ICC) claims.

countClaimM	paidTotalClaimM	paidBuildingM	paidContentsM	paidICCM
2.71	87775	71337.6	15486.1	951.23

Figure xx. Number of NFIP Claims by Year from 1978 to 2024.

Figure xx. Total Amount Paid on NFIP Claims by Year from 1978 to 2024 (Adjusted in 2024 Dollars).

Table xx. Top 10 Most Costly Flood Events By Total Amount Paid on NFIP Claims ($ millions). Table is ranked on Total Amount Paid in 2025 dollars (i.e. paidTotalClaimM2025). The column paidTotalClaimM is the amount paid ($ millions) when occurred.

rank	yearOfLoss	floodEvent	countClaims	paidTotalClaimM	paidTotalClaimM2025	averagePaidClaim2025
1	2005	Hurricane Katrina	208348	16261	27088	130017
2	2012	Hurricane Sandy	144848	8957	12553	86668
3	2017	Hurricane Harvey	92397	9055	11846	128210
4	2024	Hurricane Helene	57738	5802	5976	103509
5	2022	Hurricane Ian	48755	4830	5457	111945
6	2008	Hurricane Ike	58126	2702	4067	69972
7	2016	Mid-summer severe storms	30018	2533	3397	113169
8	2004	Hurricane Ivan	20137	1325	2273	112900
9	2001	Tropical Storm Allison	35561	1104	2004	56373
10	2011	Hurricane Irene	52493	1347	1943	37026

Figure xx. Number of NFIP Claims by State.

Figure xx. Number of NFIP Claims Normalized by State Area.

1. Introduction

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is managed by FEMA and provides flood insurance to mitigate the socio-economic impacts of floods. In 2019, OpenFEMA released two datasets related to the NFIP to promote transparency, reduce complexity for public data requests, and to improve how the agency’s stakeholders interact with and understand the NFIP:

1. NFIP Redacted Policies
2. NFIP Redacted Claims

With over 69 million policies and 2.7 million claims transactions as of May 04, 2025, this is one of the largest openly available insurance datasets in the United States and possibly the world. This project examines the NFIP Redacted Claims dataset.

Due to its large file size, accessing the dataset can be a challenge, even for experienced analysts. To address this, I designed a tutorial demonstrating how to analyze the dataset with my local laptop. To achieve this, I utilized DuckDB, a lightweight, high-performance SQL OLAP database management system. DuckDB offers a smooth experience, is blazing-fast, includes a robust Python API, and is open-source. I used SQL via the Python Client API for data analysis and used GeoPandas for mapping.

The ultimate goal of this project is to promote the dataset for academic research and to assist communities in analyzing and downloading the data. This dataset is one of my favorites, and I hope you find these tutorials helpful in advancing the study and analysis of the NFIP.

To learn more about the NFIP:

• NFIP Website: https://www.fema.gov/flood-insurance
• For more information about what’s covered and to find a policy, visit FloodSmart: https://www.floodsmart.gov/why-buy-flood-insurance

Note: This analysis uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

2. Notebooks

• Analysis: Explore NFIP Claims data with DuckDB with ease.
• Download Data: Demonstrates how to download the NFIP Redacted Claims dataset from OpenFEMA.
• Generate Figures: This notebook is dedicated to generating figures and tables displayed on this page. For a more detailed analysis of the NFIP data, refer to the analysis.ipynb notebook.

3. Data

OpenFEMA Dataset: FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims - v2. Retrieved from https://www.fema.gov/openfema-data-page/fima-nfip-redacted-claims-v2. This product uses the FEMA OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

Please refer to the OpenFEMA Terms and Conditions for further information regarding the usage and access of OpenFEMA datasets.

4. Additional Resources

FEMA:

• NFIP:
  • Historical NFIP Claims Information and Trends: https://www.floodsmart.gov/historical-nfip-claims-information-and-trends?map=countries/us/us-all&region=us&miny=all&maxy=all&county=&gtype=country
  • Flood Insurance Data and Analytics: https://nfipservices.floodsmart.gov/reports-flood-insurance-data
  • Frequently Asked Questions about NFIP Policies and Claims Data: https://nfipservices.floodsmart.gov/frequently-asked-questions-about-nfip-policies-and-claims-data
• OpenFEMA:
  • FEMA NFIP Claims and Policy Data Press Release (2019): https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20230425/fema-publishes-nfip-claims-and-policy-data
  • OpenFEMA Dataset: FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims - v2: https://www.fema.gov/openfema-data-page/fima-nfip-redacted-claims-v2
  • OpenFEMA Dataset: FIMA NFIP Redacted Policies - v2: https://www.fema.gov/openfema-data-page/fima-nfip-redacted-policies-v2

Academic Research:

• Wing, O.E.J., Pinter, N., Bates, P.D. et al. New insights into US flood vulnerability revealed from flood insurance big data. Nat Commun 11, 1444 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15264-2

NFIP Redacted Claims & Policies Analysis:

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

• Flood Insurance in the US: Lessons from FEMA’s Recent Data Release (2020):
  • Part I: https://esg.wharton.upenn.edu/news/flood-insurance-in-the-us-lessons-from-femas-recent-data-release-part-i/
  • Part II: https://esg.wharton.upenn.edu/climate-center/flood-insurance-in-the-us-lessons-from-femas-recent-data-release-part-ii/

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

• FEMA Flood Data: 2.4 Million Damage Claims and Counting (2019): https://www.nrdc.org/bio/anna-weber/fema-flood-data-24-million-damage-claims-and-counting
• FEMA Flood Data: What We Still Need to Know (2019): https://www.nrdc.org/bio/anna-weber/fema-flood-data-what-we-still-need-know
• FEMA Puts New Data on the Map for Policymakers (2020): https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/cityscpe/vol22num1/ch10.pdf

Verisk

• Modeling Fundamentals: Evaluating U.S. Flood Model Loss Output with Historical Loss Experience (2020): https://www.verisk.com/blog/modeling-fundamentals-evaluating-u-s--flood-model-loss-output-with-historical-loss-experience/

Insurance Information Institute

• Facts + Statistics: Flood insurance (2024): https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-flood-insurance
• Spotlight on: Flood insurance (2024): https://www.iii.org/article/spotlight-on-flood-insurance
• Flood: State of the Risk (2023): https://www.iii.org/article/flood-state-of-the-risk

Community Open Data:

Norfolk Open Data

• Norfolk Claims from the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program: https://data.norfolk.gov/stories/s/FEMA-National-Flood-Insurance-Program-Redacted-Cla/gi5t-nkzw/
• FEMA NFIP Claims Dataset: https://data.norfolk.gov/Government/FEMA-NFIP-Claims/suf7-r643/about_data

Other:

DHS/FEMA

• DHS/FEMA/PIA-050 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) PIVOT System (2018): https://www.dhs.gov/publication/dhsfemapia-050-national-flood-insurance-program-nfip-pivot-system

5. Say Hello!

Feel free to reach out.

• LinkedIn: markebauer
• Portfolio: mebauer.github.io
• GitHub: mebauer