Methodology & sources

SafeHomeFacts combines public U.S. government data into one page per state, county and selected ZIP code. Everything here is a historical average, not a quote. This page explains where each number comes from and what it can and can’t tell you.

Pages on the site

Homeowners insurance premiums

Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Federal Insurance Office (FIO), Analyses of U.S. Homeowners Insurance Markets, 2018–2022: Climate-Related Risks and Other Factors, “Supporting Underlying Metrics” data file, published January 2025.

• Treasury collected ZIP-code data from insurers writing about 80% of U.S. homeowners premiums, covering HO-3 and HO-5 policies (the most common homeowners forms).
• It excludes state residual-market plans (FAIR plans and Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance), surplus-lines insurers and flood insurance.
• Treasury only released ZIP codes with at least 10 reporting insurers and enough policies, which is 25,593 ZIP codes. All dollar figures are adjusted for inflation by Treasury.
• ZIP pages show Treasury’s average premium per policy for that ZIP code.
• County and state “typical” premiums are the median of the ZIP-code averages in that county or state. We use the median because a few ZIP codes with unusual data can pull a simple average up or down a lot. Treasury warns that individual ZIP codes can contain anomalies.
• The U.S. average on the home page is Treasury’s own national figure, weighted by policies. The typical U.S. ZIP code (median) is lower, at $1,551 in 2022, because many rural ZIP codes have lower premiums and fewer policies.
• Florida: Treasury’s data covers less than half of Florida’s homeowners market and leaves out Citizens, so Florida figures are less representative than other states.
• Treasury’s data ends in 2022. Premiums in many places have risen since then.

We assign each ZIP code to the county that contains the largest land area of it, using the U.S. Census Bureau 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file. In Connecticut, which now uses planning regions instead of counties, we use GeoNames region codes.

Nonrenewals, claims and cancellations

These also come from the Treasury data file, for 2022. The nonrenewal rate is the share of policies that insurers chose not to renew. Claim frequency is the share of policies with at least one paid claim. County and state figures are the median of their ZIP codes’ values, and “typical U.S. ZIP” comparisons are medians across all ZIP codes in Treasury’s data.

Flood insurance

Source: FEMA, OpenFEMA FIMA NFIP Redacted Policies v3 (data as of September 8, 2026).

• We include policies for single-family homes that took effect between 2022 and 2025.
• “Average flood policy” is the average full policy cost, including premium, fees and surcharges, for policies that took effect in that year.
• Flood zones are grouped into A zones (high risk), V zones (high-risk coastal), X/B/C zones (moderate to lower risk) and other or unrated zones (such as D zones or records without a rated zone).
• We only show an average where at least 10 policies took effect, and we assign policies to ZIP codes using the ZIP code FEMA reports.
• The NFIP is not the only source of flood insurance. Private flood policies aren’t in this data.

Natural hazards

Source: FEMA National Risk Index (December 2025), county level.

• FEMA scores 18 natural hazards for every county. Our hazard charts show each county’s national percentile. For example, 90 means the county scores higher than 90% of U.S. counties for that hazard.
• The scores combine how often a hazard happens, how much property and how many people are exposed to it, and how well communities can recover. Large, populous counties therefore tend to rank higher on many hazards. A high score doesn’t mean an event is likely in any given year.
• The overall rating (for example “Relatively Moderate”) is FEMA’s own rating of the county’s overall risk score.
• Our practical tips only highlight a hazard when the county ranks high on both the risk score and FEMA’s expected loss rate, which adjusts for how much is exposed.
• In Connecticut, FEMA’s data uses planning regions. Some state maps aren’t shown where county boundaries in the map file don’t match FEMA’s data.

ZIP code pages

We publish a ZIP code page only when the data is solid enough. That means Treasury published all five years for the ZIP code and either it is in Treasury’s top four policy-count deciles or at least 100 NFIP policies took effect there in 2025. ZIP codes without Treasury data but with at least 250 NFIP policies get a flood-focused page. For other ZIP codes, the lookup takes you to the county page.

Other sources

• Neighboring counties: U.S. Census Bureau county adjacency file (2024).
• Population: as reported in the FEMA National Risk Index (2020 Census).
• Place names for ZIP codes: GeoNames postal code data, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Maps: us-atlas (ISC license), based on U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files.
• Charts: Chart.js (MIT license).

FEMA notice

This product uses the FEMA OpenFEMA API and National Risk Index data, 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).

Updates and corrections

We refresh the flood data as FEMA updates it and check the other sources for new releases. Pages were last rebuilt on October 25, 2026. If you spot a mistake, please email pa@ahdeck.com.