Hurricane Maria
NFIP flood claims
- By paid claims (593), Hurricane Maria is the lowest of 42 named storms covered here, and the 12th highest of 42 by median paid claim in 2024 dollars.
- Puerto Rico holds 80.4% of the storm’s paid claims and U.S. Virgin Islands 19.6%; 2 states are listed.
- In 2024 dollars (CPI-U), its median paid claim, $37,601, is 48.5% above the middle value of the storm medians ($25,316).
- Median paid claims of the storm run from $27,242 in Puerto Rico to $32,387 in U.S. Virgin Islands.
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 Maria (AL152017, retrieved 2026-10-12) records 2 landfalls, 1 of them in or near a US county. It came on 2017-09-20 at 10:15 UTC, as a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 135 kt: HURDAT2 position 18.0N 65.9W, rounded to 0.1°; county containing or nearest it: Maunabo Municipio, PR.
| Date | Time (UTC) | Position | Strength | Wind (kt) | Pressure (mb) | County containing or nearest the position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-09-19 | 01:15 | 15.4N 61.3W | category 5 hurricane | 145 | 922 | no US county |
| 2017-09-20 | 10:15 | 18.0N 65.9W | category 4 hurricane | 135 | 920 | Maunabo Municipio, PR |
National Hurricane Center report
From the NHC Tropical Cyclone Report on Hurricane Maria (retrieved 2026-10-12):
“Maria was a very severe Cape Verde Hurricane that ravaged the island of Dominica at category 5 (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) intensity, and later devastated Puerto Rico as a high-end category 4 hurricane.”
“It also inflicted serious damage on some of the other islands of the northeastern Caribbean Sea.”
NFIP paid building claims in Hurricane Maria
NFIP claims: amounts paid, not repair cost. Window: event: Hurricane Maria, year of loss 2017; 593 paid claims; median $29,382, half of them between $12,299 (Q1) and $49,868 (Q3), in nominal dollars. Median in 2024 dollars (CPI-U): $37,601, a monetary adjustment, not today’s cost of repair.
Paid claims by year of loss
| Year of loss | Paid claims |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 593 |
Paid claims by state
| State | Paid claims | Median paid |
|---|---|---|
| Puerto Rico | 477 | $27,242 |
| U.S. Virgin Islands | 116 | $32,387 |
Questions about Hurricane Maria flood claims
How many flood insurance claims were paid after Hurricane Maria?
593 NFIP building claims carrying FEMA’s Hurricane Maria event label were paid (event: Hurricane Maria, year of loss 2017), with a median of $29,382; half of them fall between $12,299 and $49,868. These are amounts paid, not repair cost.
What is the median Hurricane Maria flood claim in 2024 dollars?
$37,601 once each claim is adjusted with the CPI-U, against $29,382 in nominal dollars: a monetary adjustment, not today’s cost of repair.
Related tools
Paid claims of Hurricane Maria 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 Maria" with yearOfLoss 2017; 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).