Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Polk, FL

Florida · pop. 721,918 · FIPS 12105

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Strong Wind
dominant hazard
$213M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (66th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Polk $213M

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 96.53/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 49.81/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (50th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Low 27.39/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (27th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Polk

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,666 flood-insurance claims totaling $45.7M in Polk since 1978. The costliest year was 2024 ($27.7M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $19,302 paid 1979: $60,629 paid 1980: $0 paid 1981: $200 paid 1982: $6,265 paid 1983: $1,717 paid 1984: $2,045 paid 1985: $3,447 paid 1986: $0 paid 1988: $136,242 paid 1990: $0 paid 1991: $69,226 paid 1992: $7,162 paid 1993: $9,284 paid 1994: $86,148 paid 1995: $110,556 paid 1996: $33,948 paid 1997: $42,705 paid 1998: $672,305 paid 1999: $24,682 paid 2000: $500 paid 2001: $32,375 paid 2002: $438,135 paid 2003: $97,077 paid 2004: $3,672,730 paid 2005: $1,926,130 paid 2006: $25,345 paid 2007: $6,296 paid 2008: $160,323 paid 2009: $8,601 paid 2010: $4,811 paid 2011: $425,448 paid 2012: $40,808 paid 2013: $32,790 paid 2014: $18,361 paid 2015: $152,155 paid 2016: $52,665 paid 2017: $7,221,114 paid 2018: $38,686 paid 2019: $28,852 paid 2020: $10,557 paid 2021: $6,140 paid 2022: $2,154,936 paid 2023: $51,541 paid 2024: $27,709,952 paid 2025: $55,038 paid 2024 · $27.7M 1978 2025
$45.7M
total paid
$27,405
average claim
$900K
largest single claim
61%
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 Polk, FL and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Polk 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.