Average flood insurance claim: what the federal program pays per flooded house
381,068 single-family claims were paid for floods from 2016 to 2025. Pick a state below to set its median claim against your yearly bill.
Median single-family claim paid in Louisiana, 2016 to 2025
$59,219
50,842 paid claims on single-family homes over those ten years (building and contents).
| Years of the bill entered that one median claim equals | 55 |
| Median claim, whole country | $42,494 |
| Average claim, whole country | $70,978 |
Amounts as paid, not adjusted for inflation; claims of the last months are still being settled.
Compiled by Radif Partners · Where the numbers come from · FEMA and OpenFEMA files, rules read in 42 U.S.C. and 44 CFR · not a quote
From 2016 to 2025, the federal flood program paid 381,068 claims on single-family homes, about $27 billion in all, for building and contents together. The average paid claim was $70,978 and the median $42,494: half of the flooded houses received less than that. The gap between the two comes from a minority of very large losses in deep, long floods. Year by year the median moves with the floods of that year, from $13,696 in 2020 to $77,224 in 2024. Among states with at least 1,000 paid claims, Texas had the highest median, $71,152, and Maryland the lowest, $8,869. A single median claim equals about 39 years of the median yearly bill. A policy pays at most $250,000 for the building and $100,000 for belongings, after the deductibles.
Average and median: two different answers
The question "what is the average flood claim" has two honest answers, and they are far apart. Across the 381,068 single-family claims the program paid for losses between 2016 and 2025, the mean was $70,978. The median, the claim in the middle of the list, was $42,494. Flood damage is lopsided: a few inches of water in a living room means new flooring, drywall and appliances, while a house under several feet of seawater can be a near total loss. The large claims pull the mean up, and the median is the better picture of an ordinary flooded house.
These amounts are building and contents together, in the dollars of the year they were paid, with no adjustment for inflation. They count only claims that ended in a payment: claims closed without payment are left out. The source is the OpenFEMA claims file, which lists every claim with its date of loss and the amounts paid.
A year is only as large as its floods
The claim count swings with the weather far more than with the number of policies. The busiest year of the period was 2017, with 98,008 paid single-family claims; the quietest full year was 2023, with 12,831. A single storm can make the year. In the event lists of the state pages, Hurricane Harvey (2017) alone accounts for at least 69,155 paid single-family claims, and Hurricane Helene (2024) for at least 39,696.
The median per claim moves too, and not always with the count. A year dominated by a major hurricane tends to produce high medians, because so many houses take deep water at once: 2024 had the highest of the period, $77,224. A year made of smaller, scattered floods tends to produce smaller claims: the lowest median, $13,696, belongs to 2020.
Why 2025 looks small
The file shows only 8,167 paid single-family claims for losses in 2025, with a median of $29,513. Two reasons combine. First, claims take months to adjust and pay, and the last loss in this extract is dated September 7, 2026, so floods late in 2025 are still being settled and more payments will be added. Second, the year had no event on the scale of the large hurricanes above: the largest 2025 event in the state lists, Central U.S. April Flooding, accounts for 1,451 paid claims. Treat 2025 as provisional, and compare full years with each other.
The states where claims are largest
| State | Paid claims | Median claim | Average claim | Median bill, years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 101,582 | $71,152 | $95,835 | 66 |
| Florida | 118,779 | $62,518 | $85,011 | 60 |
| Louisiana | 50,842 | $59,219 | $71,225 | 54 |
| Arkansas | 1,608 | $27,847 | $45,741 | 28 |
| Washington | 1,750 | $25,563 | $46,337 | 24 |
| Missouri | 3,423 | $19,788 | $36,009 | 18 |
| Nebraska | 1,033 | $19,764 | $39,223 | 21 |
| Kentucky | 3,530 | $19,257 | $37,804 | 16 |
The three Gulf states at the top are the ones where hurricanes caused the longest and deepest floods of the period. When a hurricane stalls over a city or drives a surge inland, houses stay under water for days and the repairs reach the walls, the wiring and the heating system. At the other end, Maryland had a median paid claim of $8,869, 12 % of the leader's. The calculator at the top of the page shows the median of every state, small ones included.
The last column of the table turns the claim into years of premium. It is not a measure of whether a policy is worth buying, since a policy is bought against the chance of a flood, not its average, but it shows how quickly one flood outweighs many years of bills.
What a single claim can pay at most
However large the loss, a federal policy on a house has two ceilings: $250,000 for the building and $100,000 for belongings (42 U.S.C. 4013(b)). Each coverage has its own deductible, up to $10,000 for a house. Increased Cost of Compliance coverage on a building policy can pay up to $30,000 on top.
Many claims never reach the limits, but some do: a house worth well above $250,000 that is badly flooded leaves its owner with the difference. The simulator below shows how the limits and the deductible cut a large loss.
What the policy pays on a big loss
The federal policy would pay
$308,000
| Building, up to $250,000 | $250,000 |
| Belongings, up to $100,000 | $58,000 |
| Above the legal limits | $48,000 |
| Deductibles | $4,000 |
The coverage limits guide explains each ceiling, and the price guide what the bill buys in the first place.