Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Palm Beach, FL

Florida · pop. 1,489,461 · FIPS 12099

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hurricane
dominant hazard
$519M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Palm Beach $519M

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 99.2/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 59.83/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (60th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Low 24.49/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Palm Beach

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 10,754 flood-insurance claims totaling $72.1M in Palm Beach since 1978. The costliest year was 2004 ($16.5M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $262,355 paid 1979: $784,403 paid 1980: $17,689 paid 1981: $90,497 paid 1982: $866,996 paid 1983: $53,390 paid 1984: $190,123 paid 1985: $12,216 paid 1986: $10,642 paid 1987: $42,022 paid 1988: $23,638 paid 1989: $25,525 paid 1990: $710 paid 1991: $1,421,353 paid 1992: $311,427 paid 1993: $202,436 paid 1994: $736,037 paid 1995: $6,235,951 paid 1996: $7,802 paid 1997: $8,300 paid 1998: $2,281,400 paid 1999: $8,565,668 paid 2000: $1,334,626 paid 2001: $727,064 paid 2002: $51,278 paid 2003: $58,131 paid 2004: $16,538,336 paid 2005: $1,425,701 paid 2006: $1,818,626 paid 2007: $180,344 paid 2008: $247,613 paid 2009: $267,858 paid 2010: $168,390 paid 2011: $893,161 paid 2012: $2,825,288 paid 2013: $1,018,786 paid 2014: $5,133,302 paid 2015: $450,143 paid 2016: $1,403,644 paid 2017: $4,620,165 paid 2018: $255,369 paid 2019: $1,128,034 paid 2020: $1,005,990 paid 2021: $130,288 paid 2022: $979,326 paid 2023: $47,824 paid 2024: $534,719 paid 2025: $6,638,642 paid 2026: $68,097 paid 2004 · $16.5M 1978 2026
$72.1M
total paid
$6,705
average claim
$925K
largest single claim
48%
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 Palm Beach, FL and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Palm Beach 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.