Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Sumter, SC

South Carolina · pop. 105,493 · FIPS 45085

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hurricane
dominant hazard
$41M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Sumter $41M

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 81.74/100
national median ~50 higher than 82% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 54.68/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (55th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 45.04/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (45th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Sumter

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 292 flood-insurance claims totaling $7.6M in Sumter since 1979. The costliest year was 2015 ($6.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $1,151 paid 1980: $0 paid 1981: $0 paid 1983: $503 paid 1987: $3,762 paid 1988: $0 paid 1989: $162,758 paid 1990: $8,621 paid 1993: $2,014 paid 1994: $1,340 paid 1995: $0 paid 1996: $999 paid 1997: $0 paid 1998: $2,614 paid 1999: $0 paid 2000: $0 paid 2002: $0 paid 2007: $0 paid 2008: $0 paid 2010: $0 paid 2015: $6,261,665 paid 2016: $44,172 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $136,883 paid 2019: $20,277 paid 2020: $994,308 paid 2021: $0 paid 2022: $3,947 paid 2023: $0 paid 2024: $0 paid 2025: $0 paid 2026: $0 paid 2015 · $6.3M 1979 2026
$7.6M
total paid
$26,182
average claim
$500K
largest single claim
59%
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 Sumter, SC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Sumter 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.