Microproduct data guideintermediate

FEMA NFIP Redacted Claims

Redacted National Flood Insurance Program claims for building local flood-loss histories and insurance-signal prototypes.

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At a glance

Difficulty
Intermediate — some data preparation helps
Size
Medium · ≤1 GB
Formats
JSON, CSV, Parquet
Access
API or Download
API key
Not required
Provider
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Updates
Monthly
Data terms
OpenFEMA Terms and Conditions

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

OpenFEMA publishes redacted NFIP claim records with occupancy, dates, and paid amounts. Start with one state and a recent year. Claims are insured losses, not a complete flood census, and redaction plus policy changes limit neighborhood-level conclusions.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • A two-letter U.S. state code
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Read the OpenFEMA NFIP claims page and terms before querying.
  2. 2.Request a bounded v2 page for one state ordered by date of loss.
  3. 3.Keep occupancy, loss date, and building and contents payments.
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3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

import pandas as pd
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v2/FimaNfipClaims",
    params={
        "$filter": "state eq 'FL' and yearOfLoss eq 2024",
        "$select": "id,state,countyCode,yearOfLoss,dateOfLoss,occupancyType,amountPaidOnBuildingClaim,amountPaidOnContentsClaim",
        "$top": 100,
    },
    timeout=60,
)
response.raise_for_status()
claims = pd.DataFrame(response.json()["FimaNfipClaims"])
claims["retrieved_at_utc"] = pd.Timestamp.now(tz="UTC")
print(claims.head())
4

Test a useful signal

Summarize recent Florida NFIP claims

Test whether a bounded claims extract can power a county flood-loss sketch.

  1. 01Convert payment fields to numbers and drop rows missing loss dates.
  2. 02Sum building and contents payments by county code for the selected year.
  3. 03Explain that NFIP claims cover insured properties only and that redaction prevents household-level identification.

Dataset details

Federal Emergency Management Agency is a government source. Last verified 2026-08-18. Temporal coverage: historical NFIP claims through the current OpenFEMA extract.

Theme

Environment & Hazards

Domains

Natural HazardsHousingEmergency Management

Data types

Event DataTabularGeospatial

Tasks

Loss AnalysisCommunity ComparisonInsurance Research

Geography

United States

Formats

JSONCSVParquet

Provider

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Data terms

OpenFEMA Terms and Conditions