Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Los Angeles, CA

California · pop. 10,005,712 · FIPS 06037

Very High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Earthquake
dominant hazard
$7.6B
modeled expected annual loss/yr

Expected annual loss · all 3,232 U.S. counties

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Los Angeles $7.6B

A real dollar distribution: most counties sit far below a handful of high-exposure ones. A FEMA model of annual loss, not a record of disasters.

FEMA national percentile scores

FEMA/CDC score each county 0–100 against all others — the score is the national rank (RATING). Higher risk and vulnerability are worse; higher resilience is better.

FEMA risk indexVery High 100/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 55.38/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (55th percentile)
Community resilienceVery Low 13.55/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Los Angeles

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 9,101 flood-insurance claims totaling $72.4M in Los Angeles since 1978. The costliest year was 1998 ($9.2M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $1,500,378 paid 1979: $554,773 paid 1980: $5,122,633 paid 1981: $135,045 paid 1982: $227,712 paid 1983: $9,090,029 paid 1984: $18,098 paid 1985: $32,664 paid 1986: $110,529 paid 1987: $53,071 paid 1988: $2,762,521 paid 1989: $0 paid 1990: $56,767 paid 1991: $563,859 paid 1992: $2,322,882 paid 1993: $2,203,931 paid 1994: $743,745 paid 1995: $6,418,765 paid 1996: $55,830 paid 1997: $402,986 paid 1998: $9,170,737 paid 1999: $6,391 paid 2000: $515,361 paid 2001: $925,213 paid 2002: $118,165 paid 2003: $293,820 paid 2004: $665,201 paid 2005: $4,327,577 paid 2006: $12,584 paid 2007: $4,364 paid 2008: $498,315 paid 2009: $222,582 paid 2010: $3,082,503 paid 2011: $1,880,063 paid 2012: $18,682 paid 2013: $0 paid 2014: $1,368,074 paid 2015: $319,225 paid 2016: $505,726 paid 2017: $3,488,421 paid 2018: $316,389 paid 2019: $1,750,206 paid 2020: $23,865 paid 2021: $471,155 paid 2022: $160,860 paid 2023: $3,488,015 paid 2024: $5,300,474 paid 2025: $923,075 paid 2026: $159,197 paid 1998 · $9.2M 1978 2026
$72.4M
total paid
$7,954
average claim
$750K
largest single claim
27%
in high-risk flood zones (A/V)

RECORDED — these are actual paid NFIP claims (a redacted census from OpenFEMA), not a model. They are the realized counterpart to the FEMA risk score above: one is what happened and got paid, the other is what a model predicts.

Scope: these are flood-insurance claims, so they undercount flooding where owners were uninsured — read this as "what NFIP paid here," not "every flood." County-level totals, not a per-property or per-address verdict. Verify a specific address and buy coverage at FloodSmart.gov; the underlying data is OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims.

What these figures mean

  • RATING — the FEMA risk score, expected loss, social vulnerability, and resilience are FEMA/CDC models, not records of disasters that happened. The 0–100 scores are already national percentiles.
  • MEASURED — population is a recorded census figure.
  • COMPUTED — the county's rank within the dollar-loss distribution is our placement over the 3,232 counties.
  • CONTEXT — the note below is framing, not a measurement.

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What this is — and is not

This is FEMA/CDC modeled hazard exposure for Los Angeles, CA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Los Angeles is a good or bad place to live — hazard exposure is not place quality, and a county can't opt out of its geography. It is not a per-property or per-address risk assessment, not a prediction of any specific disaster, and not insurance advice. For site-specific risk use a per-property assessment; for the underlying model see FEMA National Risk Index.