Flood Damage by Interior Water Depth,
NFIP Paid Claims 2015-2024
- Damage is the actual cash value of the building damage on the claim, not repair cost. FEMA defines the field as “The actual cash value amount of damage to a main property”; it is shown here as a share of the actual cash value of the building before the flood, as estimated by an adjuster.
- On paid building claims (year of loss 2020-2024, n = 200,003), the median claim was paid 95.5% of its adjuster-estimated actual cash value building damage; 96.1% over 2015-2024 (n = 461,335).
- Window: paid NFIP claims with a year of loss 2015 to 2024. Coverage: United States, all states and territories, read nationally. Interior water depth in inches, from interior water marks relative to the lowest adjacent grade.
- Three one-floor single-family segments: Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported; Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated; Single-family home, one floor, not elevated. Each cell gives n; no cell has fewer than 100 claims (smallest: 137). Each curve is also shown without Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Ian.
- No county or ZIP breakdown: per band, local counts are too small. No curve is given for homes with two floors or more. Only the first segment restricts to homes with no basement reported.
Source: FEMA, OpenFEMA dataset NFIP Redacted Claims - v3, endpoint https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v3/NfipClaims. Data retrieved 2026-10-09 (FEMA last refreshed the dataset on 2026-09-09) · next refresh 2026-11-09. Not an official federal report.
From water depth to a band
Enter an interior water depth and the value of the building alone (its actual cash value, without the land). The tool returns the range of the six medians of the matching band, applied to that value. It is a reading of past claims, not an estimate of a loss.
12 inches falls in the 7-12 inch band. There, the median damage was 37.9% to 41.8% of the building’s actual cash value, across the three segments with and without Harvey and Ian: about $75,800 to $83,600 for $200,000. Medians of past NFIP claims nationally, in actual cash value: not a repair cost and not a forecast of any one loss.
Flood damage by interior water depth, NFIP paid claims 2015-2024
Median flood damage, as a share of the building’s actual cash value and in dollars, by interior water depth, on NFIP claims paid with a year of loss in 2015-2024, computed from FEMA’s OpenFEMA dataset NFIP Redacted Claims - v3. Actual cash value, not repair cost.
| Segment | Interior depth (in) | n | Median damage / building value | Median damage ($, actual cash value) | n excl. Harvey and Ian | Median damage / value excl. Harvey and Ian | Median damage ($) excl. Harvey and Ian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported | 1-6 | 44,799 | 24.7% | $38,195 | 29,951 | 21.5% | $32,827 |
| Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported | 7-12 | 20,774 | 40.5% | $69,359 | 12,876 | 37.9% | $63,771 |
| Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported | 13-24 | 18,920 | 45.7% | $82,788 | 11,517 | 43.6% | $77,861 |
| Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported | 25-36 | 8,366 | 49.2% | $94,631 | 5,299 | 46.9% | $85,766 |
| Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported | 37-48 | 4,506 | 53.5% | $103,248 | 2,871 | 49.6% | $88,375 |
| Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported | 49-72 | 3,231 | 62.9% | $115,366 | 1,624 | 54.8% | $85,072 |
| Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported | 73-240 | 1,550 | 68.8% | $120,613 | 720 | 63.4% | $76,644 |
| Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated | 1-6 | 27,056 | 27.0% | $44,760 | 17,636 | 24.3% | $39,414 |
| Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated | 7-12 | 12,647 | 41.8% | $77,717 | 7,938 | 40.5% | $75,630 |
| Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated | 13-24 | 10,882 | 46.9% | $93,579 | 6,829 | 46.3% | $95,794 |
| Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated | 25-36 | 4,638 | 50.5% | $105,696 | 3,201 | 49.7% | $102,722 |
| Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated | 37-48 | 2,475 | 54.5% | $110,570 | 1,729 | 52.8% | $103,428 |
| Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated | 49-72 | 1,262 | 64.4% | $132,892 | 636 | 57.5% | $103,094 |
| Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated | 73-240 | 408 | 72.6% | $148,269 | 137 | 66.8% | $87,074 |
| Single-family home, one floor, not elevated | 1-6 | 41,440 | 25.4% | $39,911 | 27,292 | 22.2% | $34,402 |
| Single-family home, one floor, not elevated | 7-12 | 19,198 | 41.0% | $71,433 | 11,671 | 38.5% | $66,459 |
| Single-family home, one floor, not elevated | 13-24 | 16,950 | 46.6% | $87,054 | 9,969 | 44.8% | $84,066 |
| Single-family home, one floor, not elevated | 25-36 | 7,293 | 50.6% | $100,652 | 4,426 | 48.6% | $93,268 |
| Single-family home, one floor, not elevated | 37-48 | 3,867 | 55.7% | $111,040 | 2,370 | 52.0% | $96,787 |
| Single-family home, one floor, not elevated | 49-72 | 2,657 | 65.6% | $127,650 | 1,263 | 58.2% | $93,482 |
| Single-family home, one floor, not elevated | 73-240 | 1,165 | 73.0% | $136,550 | 496 | 68.2% | $88,583 |
How the figures are computed
Records: every NFIP claim with a yearOfLoss from 2015 to 2024 and amountPaidOnBuildingClaim above $0. Depth: interiorWaterDepth from 1 to 240 inches. The older waterDepth field is not used: on rows where both are above 0, most waterDepth values, read as feet, match the interior depth to within 6 inches, so no row-by-row conversion can be defended. Ratio: buildingDamageAmount / buildingPropertyValue, both above $0. Medians are Hyndman-Fan type 7; ratios are rounded half up to three decimals, dollars to the dollar.
Segments: Single-family home, one floor, no basement reported (occupancyType 1 or 11, numberOfFloorsInTheInsuredBuilding 1, basementEnclosureCrawlspaceType 0 or not reported); Single-family home, one floor, slab, not elevated (occupancyType 1 or 11, numberOfFloorsInTheInsuredBuilding 1, foundationType "1" (slab), elevatedBuildingIndicator false); Single-family home, one floor, not elevated (occupancyType 1 or 11, numberOfFloorsInTheInsuredBuilding 1, elevatedBuildingIndicator false). A curve for all single-family homes (any floors, elevated or not) was computed and left out: without Harvey and Ian its median ratio falls from 39.5% (37-48 in, n = 5,157) to 34.1% (49-72 in, n = 3,625) and 36.4% (73-240 in, n = 2,133). The three segments kept overlap: all are one-floor single-family homes.
Paid over damage: amountPaidOnBuildingClaim / buildingDamageAmount on paid claims with damage above $0. 2015-2024: Q1 84.9%, median 96.1%, Q3 101.7%; 2020-2024: Q1 84.5%, median 95.5%, Q3 99.8%. 24.5% of 2020-2024 payments exceed the estimated damage; the dataset does not say why.
A depth of 1 inch is the most frequent value: 23,494 of 208,327 paid claims with a depth above 0 (11.3%).
What these figures are not
Damage here is actual cash value, which deducts depreciation: it is not repair cost, not replacement cost and not a contractor’s price. The medians describe NFIP-insured buildings with a paid claim, nationally, mixing dollars of different years and different disasters; they do not describe all homes or all floods. Nothing here predicts the damage, the claim amount, the cost or the eligibility of anyone, and nothing here says what a quote should be.
The same FEMA figures for AI assistants: RestoreWorth FEMA Data MCP server
Source, notice and license
Dataset: NFIP Redacted Claims - v3, published by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), OpenFEMA, API endpoint https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v3/NfipClaims (version v3). Retrieved 2026-10-09T12:06:56Z; FEMA last refreshed the dataset on 2026-09-09 and updates it about monthly; RestoreWorth plans its next refresh on 2026-11-09. NFIP was still paying claims with a 2024 year of loss in 2026: FEMA’s mostRecentPaymentDate falls in 2026 on some of them, so figures that include 2024 can change at a later refresh. OpenFEMA terms and conditions. FEMA states about the source dataset: “This dataset is not intended to be an official federal report, and should not be considered an official federal report.” No FEMA or DHS logo or seal is used.
This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).
Only national aggregates are published here; no claim record, county, ZIP code or city figure. The aggregates on this page are licensed under CC BY 4.0, attribution “RestoreWorth Team”.
Download the table: CSV · JSON (same records; the JSON also carries the source and method metadata).