Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Bristol, MA

Massachusetts · pop. 578,698 · FIPS 25005

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Riverine Flooding
dominant hazard
$87M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

lower than most counties (27th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Bristol $87M

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 89.85/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 32.73/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (33rd percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 84.96/100
national median ~50 higher than 85% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Bristol

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,558 flood-insurance claims totaling $13.7M in Bristol since 1978. The costliest year was 1991 ($5.2M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $261,684 paid 1979: $46,441 paid 1980: $1,744 paid 1981: $0 paid 1982: $55,167 paid 1983: $48,316 paid 1984: $167,604 paid 1985: $36,697 paid 1986: $4,055 paid 1987: $151,265 paid 1988: $0 paid 1989: $0 paid 1990: $0 paid 1991: $5,215,644 paid 1992: $498,149 paid 1993: $0 paid 1994: $0 paid 1996: $13,667 paid 1997: $101,406 paid 1998: $740,288 paid 1999: $3,547 paid 2000: $20,607 paid 2001: $98,521 paid 2002: $0 paid 2003: $3,108 paid 2004: $0 paid 2005: $696,611 paid 2006: $145,863 paid 2007: $27,545 paid 2008: $27,568 paid 2009: $21,979 paid 2010: $2,548,356 paid 2011: $71,922 paid 2012: $599,785 paid 2013: $13,540 paid 2014: $26,511 paid 2015: $30,342 paid 2016: $0 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $107,405 paid 2019: $3,328 paid 2020: $8,806 paid 2021: $606,863 paid 2022: $274,548 paid 2023: $992,221 paid 2024: $68,804 paid 2025: $0 paid 2026: $0 paid 1991 · $5.2M 1978 2026
$13.7M
total paid
$8,819
average claim
$500K
largest single claim
76%
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.

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text

What this is — and is not

This is FEMA/CDC modeled hazard exposure for Bristol, MA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Bristol 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.