Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Denver, CO

Colorado · pop. 715,210 · FIPS 08031

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hail
dominant hazard
$222M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (69th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Denver $222M

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 indexRelatively High 95.23/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 17.78/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively High 68.48/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (68th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Denver

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 242 flood-insurance claims totaling $719K in Denver since 1978. The costliest year was 1998 ($178K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $6,425 paid 1979: $6,993 paid 1980: $4,992 paid 1981: $1,437 paid 1982: $71,720 paid 1983: $33,539 paid 1984: $16,636 paid 1985: $69,573 paid 1986: $0 paid 1987: $15,655 paid 1988: $5,729 paid 1989: $0 paid 1991: $389 paid 1992: $0 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $0 paid 1996: $3,968 paid 1997: $6,385 paid 1998: $177,941 paid 1999: $0 paid 2000: $0 paid 2001: $30,989 paid 2002: $0 paid 2003: $914 paid 2004: $7,743 paid 2005: $0 paid 2007: $5,635 paid 2008: $9,756 paid 2009: $815 paid 2010: $1,598 paid 2011: $40,790 paid 2012: $208 paid 2013: $2,003 paid 2014: $7,637 paid 2015: $113,750 paid 2016: $0 paid 2017: $15,478 paid 2018: $11,004 paid 2019: $14,324 paid 2021: $7,424 paid 2022: $2,042 paid 2023: $21,974 paid 2024: $3,960 paid 2025: $0 paid 1998 · $178K 1978 2025
$719K
total paid
$2,973
average claim
$68K
largest single claim
19%
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 Denver, CO and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Denver 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.