The Flood Zone Exposure Report: Claims Outside the Mapped Risk

What the zone families mean

Every NFIP policy carries a rated flood zone, the mapped flood hazard designation applied when the policy was rated. The groupings are not obvious from the letters alone, so following the published FEMA flood zone definitions:

• A-prefix zones are the 1% annual chance floodplain, commonly called the 100-year floodplain and formally the Special Flood Hazard Area. The family covers AE and the numbered A01 to A30 zones, which carry a base flood elevation; plain A, which does not; AH and AO for shallow ponding and sheet flow; and AR and A99 where a protection system is being restored or built.
• V-prefix zones are the same floodplain with coastal wave action added, which is why they are rated separately. VE carries a base flood elevation and plain V does not.
• B, C and X zones sit outside the mapped high-risk area. X is the current designation, covering the 0.2% annual chance floodplain and areas above it; B and C are the former designations and still appear on older ratings.
• D zones are areas with no flood hazard analysis, so risk is undetermined rather than low. They are kept separate here.

The distinction carrying the most weight is mandatory purchase. Per the FEMA, mandatory purchase requirement, flood insurance is required for a federally backed mortgage in an A or V zone and not required in B, C or X zones. That single difference shapes every figure here. Our report on flood insurance cost by state compares what policies cost inside and outside the high-risk zone.

Every zone code in the file

Zone code	Claims	Family	Median building damage	What it means
AE	370,947	A zones	$41,842	High risk. 1% annual chance floodplain, base flood elevation determined.
X	158,856	B, C and X zones	$30,961	Moderate to minimal risk. Outside the 1% annual chance floodplain.
A	25,935	A zones	$28,912	High risk. 1% annual chance floodplain, no base flood elevation.
VE	16,798	V zones	$20,361	High risk, coastal. Wave action, base flood elevation determined.
C	10,570	B, C and X zones	$36,438	Minimal risk. Former designation above the 0.2% annual chance floodplain.
B	9,000	B, C and X zones	$48,918	Moderate risk. Former designation between the 1% and 0.2% annual chance floodplains.
AH	7,720	A zones	$34,476	High risk. Shallow ponding, normally one to three feet.
AO	3,533	A zones	$22,355	High risk. Shallow sheet flow, normally one to three feet.
AHB	2,213	A zones	$34,021	High risk. Shallow ponding zone carrying a base flood depth.
A07	1,944	A zones	$14,064	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A10	1,561	A zones	$11,853	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A08	1,525	A zones	$23,504	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A13	1,371	A zones	$12,950	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A04	1,319	A zones	$37,906	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A99	1,176	A zones	$35,694	High risk. Federal protection system under construction.
A06	1,150	A zones	$38,239	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A02	1,017	A zones	$28,925	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A05	1,011	A zones	$19,580	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A11	834	A zones	$18,340	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A03	723	A zones	$21,652	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A12	638	A zones	$20,121	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A01	608	A zones	$33,767	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A09	593	A zones	$10,790	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
AOB	548	A zones	$26,554	High risk. Shallow sheet flow zone carrying a base flood depth.
A15	539	A zones	$32,514	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A14	356	A zones	$16,632	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A18	227	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
D	216	D zones	below reporting threshold	Risk undetermined. No flood hazard analysis conducted.
A16	164	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V13	160	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
A20	78	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V21	76	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
A17	69	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V16	67	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V15	60	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V12	57	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V09	54	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V20	40	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
A21	35	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V22	33	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V10	32	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V02	32	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V17	28	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V19	27	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V14	22	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V	22	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Wave action, no base flood elevation.
A19	19	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V18	14	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V08	12	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V05	12	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
A23	12	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V11	10	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V04	10	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
V07	9	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
A22	5	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V03	4	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
A30	4	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
V01	2	V zones	below reporting threshold	High risk, coastal. Numbered wave-action floodplain from an older detailed study.
AR	2	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Floodplain reclassified while a protection system is restored.
A25	2	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A24	1	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.
A27	1	A zones	below reporting threshold	High risk. Numbered floodplain from an older detailed study, carrying a base flood elevation.

The concentration is heavy: AE and X together carry 84.9% of all classified claims. The long tail of numbered zones is a legacy of older detailed studies rather than a separate kind of risk, so the family is the unit of analysis and the code the unit of lookup.

Share of claims by zone family

A zones carry 68.6% of claims, B, C and X zones 28.6%, and V zones 2.8%. The out-of-zone figure covers properties not required to carry flood insurance, in areas the maps place outside the 1% annual chance floodplain, that flooded anyway and filed a claim.

Loss year	Classified claims	Out-of-zone share
2015	34,455	37.8%
2016	85,159	25.9%
2017	144,384	42.3%
2018	41,913	29.5%
2019	34,919	46.0%
2020	33,133	29.3%
2021	46,685	35.0%
2022	60,257	11.7%
2023	21,671	19.5%
2024	102,040	10.1%
2025	13,133	32.9%
2026	6,138	30.7%

The year-by-year figures move from 10.1% to 46.0% in the FEMA NFIP file. That is event composition rather than changing exposure: a coastal storm surge year concentrates claims inside the mapped zones, an inland rainfall year spreads them outside. No trend is readable here.

Damage by zone family

Zone family	Claims	Claims with damage assessed	Median building damage	Mean building damage	Median payout ratio	Median depth (ft)
A zones, the 1% annual chance floodplain	427,880	346,354	$39,276	$69,969	95.1%	1.0
V zones, coastal floodplain with wave action	17,581	13,444	$19,830	$86,767	88.2%	1.0
B, C and X zones, moderate to minimal risk	178,426	129,218	$32,440	$55,711	97.7%	1.0
D zones, risk undetermined	216	137	$40,797	$61,579	not enough data	not enough data

Median building damage outside the high-risk zones is $32,440 against $39,276 inside the A zones, a difference of 17%, and median recorded depth is 1.0 feet in A zones against 1.0 feet outside them.

The V zone row does not behave as expected. V zones carry the lowest median of the three families at $19,830 and the highest mean at $86,767, making the coastal distribution the most skewed in the file. Payout ratios run 95.1% in A zones, 88.2% in V zones and 97.7% outside the high-risk area, and the V figure sitting lowest is consistent with larger losses pressing against programme coverage limits, which our insured flood loss gap report covers. Our companion report on flood loss by building type covers how occupancy interacts with these zones.

Out-of-zone share by state

State	Classified claims	Out-of-zone share	High-risk share	Coastal V zone share
Colorado	882	75.1%	24.9%	0.0%
Texas	149,622	54.1%	45.9%	0.8%
South Dakota	682	49.0%	51.0%	0.0%
Arizona	815	48.3%	51.7%	0.0%
New Mexico	715	48.0%	52.0%	0.0%
Minnesota	862	47.7%	52.3%	0.0%
Maryland	3,137	46.6%	53.4%	0.9%
New York	12,497	39.3%	60.7%	0.9%
Virginia	6,452	38.9%	61.1%	0.3%
California	7,573	37.2%	62.8%	2.2%
Wisconsin	2,236	36.7%	63.3%	0.0%
Kansas	1,136	35.7%	64.3%	0.0%
Ohio	3,549	35.0%	65.0%	0.1%
Oklahoma	2,131	34.2%	65.8%	0.0%
Connecticut	2,106	32.6%	67.4%	2.2%
Tennessee	4,092	32.3%	67.7%	0.0%
Oregon	795	30.6%	69.4%	3.5%
Rhode Island	566	30.6%	69.4%	15.7%
Mississippi	5,773	30.1%	69.9%	4.5%
Georgia	7,989	28.8%	71.2%	1.3%
Michigan	3,590	28.6%	71.4%	0.3%
Iowa	2,231	28.6%	71.4%	0.0%
Louisiana	72,854	28.3%	71.7%	1.6%
Illinois	5,687	28.0%	72.0%	0.1%
Pennsylvania	8,860	27.8%	72.2%	0.1%
Arkansas	2,700	27.3%	72.7%	0.0%
Alabama	6,055	25.0%	75.0%	12.6%
Puerto Rico	1,091	23.7%	76.3%	2.2%
Hawaii	1,620	23.7%	76.3%	13.8%
Indiana	2,913	23.5%	76.5%	0.0%
North Carolina	32,852	23.0%	77.0%	6.0%
South Carolina	21,043	22.9%	77.1%	5.3%
Washington	3,280	22.1%	77.9%	2.2%
West Virginia	3,199	21.6%	78.4%	0.0%
New Jersey	14,770	21.5%	78.5%	0.4%
Maine	1,317	21.5%	78.5%	16.1%
Delaware	646	21.1%	78.9%	4.0%
Vermont	1,103	19.8%	80.2%	0.0%
Massachusetts	3,962	18.7%	81.3%	16.6%
Nebraska	1,701	18.6%	81.4%	0.0%
Missouri	7,628	18.0%	82.0%	0.0%
Kentucky	6,696	15.3%	84.7%	0.0%
New Hampshire	710	14.8%	85.2%	4.9%
Florida	201,331	10.7%	89.3%	4.6%

Colorado leads at 75.1% of 882 claims and Florida sits last at 10.7%. The states at the top are inland or have substantial inland populations, where flooding comes from rainfall and stream overflow the mapped floodplain does not fully capture. Those at the bottom are coastal, where the mapped zones follow the shoreline closely. On volume, Texas holds the largest absolute pool of out-of-zone claims in the file at 54.1% of 149,622.

When the rated zone and the current map disagree

The claims file carries two zone fields. The rated flood zone is the designation used to rate the policy; the current flood zone is the designation on the map as it now stands. Per FEMA, changes to flood maps a property’s designation changes through map revisions and amendments, so the two can disagree. Across 536,251 claims carrying both they differ on 7.5%, of which 5.1% have crossed the high-risk boundary and 2.4% changed code within the same family, usually a detailed study replacing an older one.

Rated zone family	Current zone family	Claims	Share of paired claims	Median building damage
A zones	A zones	351,433	65.5%	$37,004
B, C and X zones	B, C and X zones	144,313	26.9%	$33,878
B, C and X zones	A zones	14,804	2.8%	$38,925
V zones	V zones	12,852	2.4%	$16,482
A zones	V zones	5,657	1.1%	$27,783
A zones	B, C and X zones	4,513	0.8%	$38,836
V zones	A zones	1,759	0.3%	$34,536
B, C and X zones	V zones	607	0.1%	$23,670

The largest movement runs from outside the high-risk area into it: 14,804 claims, 2.8% of paired claims, were rated in a B, C or X zone and now sit in an A zone on the current map, at a median building damage of $38,925 against $33,878 on properties that remain outside it.

That difference of 15% is a statistical association and nothing more, but it is worth recording: properties the current maps place inside the high-risk area carry larger median losses than those still mapped outside it, even though both were rated out-of-zone at the time of the claim.

Two cautions apply. The current zone field reflects the map as of retrieval, not as of the loss, so a disagreement does not establish when the revision happened relative to the flood. And a rated zone can differ through grandfathered ratings rather than a map change. These counts measure disagreement between two fields, which is exactly what they are presented as.

The selection effect that shapes every figure here

Everyone in this dataset bought flood insurance, and that is the single most important caveat on the 28.6% out-of-zone figure. Inside A and V zones cover is required for a federally backed mortgage, so much exposed property is insured and capable of producing a claim. Outside those zones cover is voluntary and take-up is far lower, so most out-of-zone property that floods never produces an NFIP claim. The file counts claims, not floods.

So 28.6% should be read as a floor rather than an estimate. If out-of-zone take-up matched in-zone take-up, the share would almost certainly be higher, because the same floods would generate claims from property that currently has no policy. This report cannot quantify by how much: the dataset holds no uninsured losses and no policy-in-force denominators.

The same logic applies to the state ranking: a state’s out-of-zone share reflects where its floods happen and where its residents buy voluntary cover. Colorado at 75.1% is a statement about its claims, not its flood exposure.

Data quality and the cleaning applied

Issue	Claims affected	How we handled it
No rated flood zone recorded	2,783	Excluded from every figure in this report.
Zone code not classifiable into a family	0	Counted in the reference table, excluded from the family analysis.
Building damage below $1,000	42,007	Excluded from damage medians, means and payout ratios. A single dollar of damage against five-figure payments destroys the ratio.
Depth recorded as exactly 99 feet	13,551	Excluded from the depth column. This is a sentinel value, not a measurement.
Negative depth	17,085	Excluded from the depth column. The dataset uses negative values for water below the first floor level.
Depth above 20 feet	30,953	Excluded from the depth column. Recorded depths run to several hundred feet, which is not plausible here.
No depth recorded	76,981	Excluded from the depth column, retained everywhere else.

After those exclusions 624,103 of the 626,886 retrieved claims carry a classifiable rated flood zone, which is the sample behind the family shares.

Method

Reproduce this

What this does not show

Questions this report answers

How many flood claims come from outside the high-risk flood zones?

28.6% of the 624,103 NFIP claims since 2015 with a classifiable rated flood zone come from B, C or X zones. A zones hold 68.6% and coastal V zones 2.8%.

What is the difference between an A zone and an X zone?

An A zone is inside the 1% annual chance floodplain, the Special Flood Hazard Area, where flood insurance is required for a federally backed mortgage. An X zone sits outside it and cover is voluntary. B and C are the former designations for that area.

What does a V zone mean?

The 1% annual chance floodplain with coastal wave action added, which is why it is rated separately from an A zone. V zones carry 2.8% of NFIP claims since 2015, at a median building damage of $19,830 and the highest mean of any family at $86,767.

Is flood damage smaller outside the high-risk zones?

At the median, yes. Median building damage is $32,440 in B, C and X zones against $39,276 in A zones, a difference of 17%, and median recorded depth is also lower.

How often does a property’s rated flood zone differ from the current map?

On 7.5% of the 536,251 NFIP claims carrying both fields, of which 5.1% differ across the high-risk boundary itself.

Does this mean out-of-zone flood risk is lower than people think?

The opposite reading is safer. Cover is voluntary outside the high-risk zones and take-up is low, so most out-of-zone property that floods never produces an NFIP claim. 28.6% counts only insured out-of-zone losses and is a floor.

Can I reuse this data?

Yes. The tables and derived figures are released under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to Remediation Insider. The underlying claims data is public and available from FEMA.