Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Cape May, NJ

New Jersey · pop. 95,244 · FIPS 34009

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Coastal Flooding
dominant hazard
$100M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

lower than most counties (31st percentile)

national median $15M/yr Cape May $100M

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 91.03/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 37.21/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (37th percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 98.82/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Cape May

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 28,015 flood-insurance claims totaling $414.6M in Cape May since 1978. The costliest year was 2012 ($276.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $27,847 paid 1979: $111,587 paid 1980: $1,930,563 paid 1981: $62,119 paid 1982: $4,929 paid 1983: $78,164 paid 1984: $7,926,328 paid 1985: $9,997,514 paid 1986: $166,302 paid 1987: $1,048,757 paid 1988: $0 paid 1989: $336,179 paid 1990: $13,849 paid 1991: $4,082,636 paid 1992: $41,167,961 paid 1993: $802,011 paid 1994: $8,981,562 paid 1995: $301,220 paid 1996: $2,466,822 paid 1997: $543,679 paid 1998: $18,584,562 paid 1999: $93,748 paid 2000: $521,912 paid 2001: $32,471 paid 2002: $40,255 paid 2003: $551,561 paid 2004: $45,054 paid 2005: $122,366 paid 2006: $446,286 paid 2007: $23,128 paid 2008: $1,647,829 paid 2009: $8,132,302 paid 2010: $391,136 paid 2011: $2,080,724 paid 2012: $276,315,322 paid 2013: $87,239 paid 2014: $46,248 paid 2015: $217,160 paid 2016: $23,293,236 paid 2017: $145,859 paid 2018: $504,651 paid 2019: $135,248 paid 2020: $113,932 paid 2021: $576,651 paid 2022: $41,253 paid 2023: $49,509 paid 2024: $43,213 paid 2025: $296,894 paid 2026: $4,913 paid 2012 · $276.3M 1978 2026
$414.6M
total paid
$14,800
average claim
$1.5M
largest single claim
99%
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 Cape May, NJ and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Cape May 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.