Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Suffolk, MA

Massachusetts · pop. 796,326 · FIPS 25025

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Lightning
dominant hazard
$115M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

lower than most counties (35th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Suffolk $115M

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 93.51/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 70.61/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (71st percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 95.48/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Suffolk

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 4,367 flood-insurance claims totaling $29.0M in Suffolk since 1978. The costliest year was 1991 ($7.6M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $4,050,393 paid 1979: $1,923,898 paid 1980: $163,196 paid 1981: $113,588 paid 1982: $262,372 paid 1983: $266,916 paid 1984: $37,060 paid 1985: $26,373 paid 1986: $4,946 paid 1987: $327,463 paid 1988: $4,215 paid 1989: $27,414 paid 1990: $34,551 paid 1991: $7,617,904 paid 1992: $2,501,725 paid 1993: $18,583 paid 1994: $10,118 paid 1995: $9,414 paid 1996: $1,243,693 paid 1997: $4,382 paid 1998: $373,557 paid 1999: $74,799 paid 2000: $36,297 paid 2001: $220,538 paid 2002: $4,770 paid 2003: $366,118 paid 2004: $207,000 paid 2005: $89,072 paid 2006: $2,095,045 paid 2007: $246,016 paid 2008: $64,102 paid 2009: $3,970 paid 2010: $405,360 paid 2011: $76,878 paid 2012: $95,613 paid 2013: $168,447 paid 2014: $103,020 paid 2015: $20,151 paid 2016: $12,616 paid 2017: $159,156 paid 2018: $3,861,607 paid 2019: $9,132 paid 2020: $6,351 paid 2021: $219,648 paid 2022: $24,170 paid 2023: $188,811 paid 2024: $1,164,158 paid 2025: $0 paid 2026: $22,638 paid 1991 · $7.6M 1978 2026
$29.0M
total paid
$6,633
average claim
$508K
largest single claim
62%
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 Suffolk, MA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Suffolk 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.