Property Atlas

County hazard profile

San Diego, CA

California · pop. 3,295,981 · FIPS 06073

Very High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Wildfire
dominant hazard
$1.5B
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr San Diego $1.5B

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 99.71/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 24.81/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (25th percentile)
Community resilienceVery Low 8.3/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in San Diego

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 2,442 flood-insurance claims totaling $48.1M in San Diego since 1978. The costliest year was 2024 ($19.9M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $42,141 paid 1979: $63,409 paid 1980: $1,642,554 paid 1981: $7,287 paid 1982: $30,994 paid 1983: $1,003,242 paid 1984: $16,458 paid 1985: $21,501 paid 1986: $33,757 paid 1987: $7,150 paid 1988: $773,021 paid 1991: $132,438 paid 1992: $80,004 paid 1993: $1,016,600 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $1,712,683 paid 1996: $2,406 paid 1997: $42,514 paid 1998: $1,931,249 paid 1999: $36,775 paid 2000: $34,964 paid 2001: $201,988 paid 2002: $5,765 paid 2003: $130,587 paid 2004: $1,014,137 paid 2005: $1,108,760 paid 2006: $49,088 paid 2007: $83,538 paid 2008: $152,442 paid 2009: $83,619 paid 2010: $3,030,601 paid 2011: $3,042 paid 2012: $199,727 paid 2013: $644,124 paid 2014: $141,917 paid 2015: $216,567 paid 2016: $2,892,019 paid 2017: $2,109,900 paid 2018: $2,448,464 paid 2019: $496,364 paid 2020: $410,618 paid 2021: $64,165 paid 2022: $186,248 paid 2023: $1,119,611 paid 2024: $19,900,117 paid 2025: $378,271 paid 2026: $2,364,863 paid 2024 · $19.9M 1978 2026
$48.1M
total paid
$19,684
average claim
$500K
largest single claim
34%
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 San Diego, CA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether San Diego 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.