HOW THIS WORKS
Methodology & honesty
A hazard scorecard is only useful if you can trust where the numbers come from. Here's our plan — and what you're looking at today.
Where the ratings come from
Every scorecard reads from the FEMA National Risk Index — a public model that combines a hazard's expected annual loss, a community's social vulnerability, and its resilience into a comparable risk score for every US county. We show detailed scorecards for the 1200 most-populous counties (drawn from a universe of 3,144 rated counties), as of 2026-07-10.
ZIP lookup
Entering a ZIP maps it to the county it overlaps most, using the US Census 2020 ZCTA↔county relationship file (22,567 ZIPs across our covered counties). A ZIP can straddle county lines; we pick the county with the largest land overlap. If your ZIP isn't in a covered county yet, the county/state search still works.
State roll-ups
State pages aggregate the real county data — how many of a state's counties FEMA rates at each level, which hazards most often rate elevated or higher, and the highest-risk counties. These are counts and rankings of real FEMA county figures, not an official FEMA state score (FEMA rates counties, not states). Roll-ups use all 3,144 rated counties, not just the covered set.
How to read the percentiles
Both the composite risk and each per-hazard score are national percentiles (0–100): a wildfire score of 90 means the county's wildfire risk is higher than about 90% of US counties — relative standing, not a probability. A big city can score “Very High” largely because there's more in harm's way (expected loss scales with what's exposed). Hazards that don't apply to a county (e.g. coastal flooding well inland) are omitted rather than shown as zero. Nothing here is invented (rule 12).
Not a guarantee
Risk estimates come from public models. They describe likelihood, not certainty, and can't account for every property detail. Always verify your insurance needs with a licensed professional — and we'll never use risk to push a fear-based sale.