Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Highlands, FL

Florida · pop. 101,136 · FIPS 12055

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Strong Wind
dominant hazard
$47M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Highlands $47M

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 Moderate 89.44/100
national median ~50 higher than 89% of counties
Social vulnerabilityVery High 94.12/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Community resilienceVery Low 5.69/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Highlands

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 202 flood-insurance claims totaling $2.6M in Highlands since 1980. The costliest year was 2022 ($1.2M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1980: $972 paid 1983: $4,500 paid 1988: $0 paid 1992: $0 paid 1995: $0 paid 1998: $16,539 paid 1999: $5,449 paid 2001: $10,485 paid 2002: $3,987 paid 2003: $4,240 paid 2004: $230,002 paid 2005: $271,083 paid 2008: $15,216 paid 2011: $6,845 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $82,504 paid 2014: $17,403 paid 2017: $679,190 paid 2018: $32,261 paid 2020: $0 paid 2021: $1,461 paid 2022: $1,172,821 paid 2023: $40,728 paid 2024: $0 paid 2025: $0 paid 2022 · $1.2M 1980 2025
$2.6M
total paid
$12,850
average claim
$150K
largest single claim
57%
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 Highlands, FL and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Highlands 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.