Hurricane Laura
NFIP flood claims
- Louisiana is the only state listed, with 94.8% of the storm’s paid claims.
- By paid claims (813), Hurricane Laura is the 4th lowest of 42 named storms covered here, and the 21st lowest of 42 by median paid claim in 2024 dollars.
- Cameron Parish, LA alone accounts for 51.7% of the storm’s paid claims.
- In 2024 dollars (CPI-U), its median paid claim, $25,131, is in line with the middle value of the storm medians ($25,316).
Source: FEMA, OpenFEMA NfipClaims (v3, data as of 2026-09-09, retrieved 2026-10-12); CPI-U, U.S. city average, all items (CUUR0000SA0), annual average (BLS Public Data API v1, annual averages 2005-2025, retrieved 2026-10-12). Not an official federal report.
Landfall and storm report
The National Hurricane Center’s HURDAT2 best track of Hurricane Laura (AL132020, retrieved 2026-10-12) records 6 landfalls, 1 of them in or near a US county. It came on 2020-08-27 at 06:00 UTC, as a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 kt: HURDAT2 position 29.8N 93.3W, rounded to 0.1°; county containing or nearest it: Cameron Parish, LA.
| Date | Time (UTC) | Position | Strength | Wind (kt) | Pressure (mb) | County containing or nearest the position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-08-21 | 20:30 | 17.1N 61.8W | tropical storm | 40 | 1,007 | no US county |
| 2020-08-21 | 23:30 | 17.1N 62.6W | tropical storm | 40 | 1,007 | no US county |
| 2020-08-23 | 04:30 | 18.4N 70.0W | tropical storm | 45 | 1,004 | no US county |
| 2020-08-24 | 02:00 | 20.0N 76.6W | tropical storm | 55 | 1,000 | no US county |
| 2020-08-25 | 00:00 | 22.3N 83.3W | tropical storm | 55 | 998 | no US county |
| 2020-08-27 | 06:00 | 29.8N 93.3W | category 4 hurricane | 130 | 939 | Cameron Parish, LA |
National Hurricane Center report
From the NHC Tropical Cyclone Report on Hurricane Laura (retrieved 2026-10-12):
“Laura was a powerful category 4 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) that made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana, accompanied by a catastrophic storm surge of up to 18 feet above ground level.”
“Laura was responsible for 47 direct deaths in the United States and Hispaniola, and about $19 billion in damage in the United States.”
NFIP paid building claims in Hurricane Laura
NFIP claims: amounts paid, not repair cost. Window: event: Hurricane Laura, year of loss 2020; 813 paid claims; median $20,735, half of them between $6,349 (Q1) and $59,000 (Q3), in nominal dollars. Median in 2024 dollars (CPI-U): $25,131, a monetary adjustment, not today’s cost of repair.
Paid claims by year of loss
| Year of loss | Paid claims |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 813 |
Paid claims by state
| State | Paid claims | Median paid |
|---|---|---|
| Louisiana | 771 | $23,371 |
Counties with the most paid claims
| County | FIPS | Paid claims |
|---|---|---|
| Cameron Parish | 22023 | 420 |
Questions about Hurricane Laura flood claims
How many flood insurance claims were paid after Hurricane Laura?
813 NFIP building claims carrying FEMA’s Hurricane Laura event label were paid (event: Hurricane Laura, year of loss 2020), with a median of $20,735; half of them fall between $6,349 and $59,000. These are amounts paid, not repair cost.
Which counties had the most Hurricane Laura flood claims?
Cameron Parish, LA (420), across 1 state listed.
What is the median Hurricane Laura flood claim in 2024 dollars?
$25,131 once each claim is adjusted with the CPI-U, against $20,735 in nominal dollars: a monetary adjustment, not today’s cost of repair.
Related tools
Paid claims of Hurricane Laura are not repair estimates: to estimate the cleanup of a flooded basement from published cost-guide rates, use the basement water damage repair cost calculator; for water removal and drying after any water loss, the water damage and mitigation calculator.
To set these figures against every State on one claims window, amounts paid, not repair cost: NFIP paid building claims by state.
Before using these figures
A storm total counts NFIP-insured buildings with a paid claim, not all the damage of the storm. Method and limits.
Source and notice
- Storm = floodEvent "Hurricane Laura" with yearOfLoss 2020; window of the extraction: yearOfLoss 2005-2025.
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).