Know Your Flood Risk: Homeowners, Renters or Business Owners

Flooding remains the country’s number one disaster and can potentially affect everyone and every property.  

Below you will find information and resources about protecting your family and property from flooding. Basic information about flood maps, flood zones, flood risk, and flood insurance can help you take action to reduce risk.

Learn About Flood Risk

Your Property's Unique Risk

Take Action

If you are living or working near a levee, it is important to understand the risks associated with levees and the steps you can take to prepare for potential floods and help provide a financial safeguard.

By understanding flood maps, you can broaden your understanding and knowledge of your flood zones and make more informed decisions to reduce your risk.

The Flood Map Service Center includes links to free resources like flood maps where you can learn more about your community’s risk.

Enter the street address you are interested in learning more about and find out what flood zone it is in.

Flood zones are geographic areas that FEMA has defined according to varying levels of flood risk. Use the dropdown feature below to learn more about your flood zone designation.

---

To find your flood zone on your community’s Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) or Flood Hazard Boundary Map (FHBM):

1. Visit the Map Service Center
2. Type in your address
3. Click on the dynamic map button to view your FIRMette

The National Risk Index is an online tool that visualizes community-level risk. It’s the first tool of its kind that identifies communities nationwide most at risk to 18 natural hazards and shows how certain factors such as social vulnerability, expected annual losses, and community resilience affect those risks. 

The National Risk Index is designed to make it easier for communities themselves to be more informed of the risks they face. This tool helps communities identify and prioritize the projects most likely to mitigate disaster costs and suffering.

When you’re figuring out your community’s floodplain management program, it is important to also consider species conservation.

To learn more about reducing flood risk, lowering flood insurance premiums, and conserving species and their habitats while enjoying the benefits of naturally functioning floodplains, visit FEMA’s Floodplains and Wildlife Conservation webpage.

FEMA has spent decades investing in high-quality data to help inform flood risk and set flood insurance rates. The flood insurance premium methodology uses that data to get a better understanding of a single property’s unique flood risk, which helps set pricing flood insurance premiums.

The flood insurance premium methodology uses several flood risk variables when considering risk, including:

• Distance from flooding source
• Flood frequencies beyond the 1% annual chance flood event
• River overflow, storm surge, coastal erosion, heavy rainfall, and property characteristics (such as distance to water source, elevation, and the cost to rebuild).  

Watch the video to learn more about how flood variables impact your flood risk, and cost to insure.

It is important to identify your risk. When working to understand and address a property’s flood risk, you may want to consider contacting an insurance agent at a participating National Flood Insurance Program provider to find out how this relates to your specific property. Based on what you learn, you may decide if insurance is the best protection for your investment.

The Reduce Flood Risk tool can also help you find ways to reduce your property's flood risk. Using this tool, you will answer a series of five questions, and receive a detailed list of mitigation options recommended to reduce flood risk.

This section contains references and links to non-federal resources and organizations. This information is meant solely for informational purposes and is not intended to be an endorsement of any non-federal entity by FEMA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or the U.S. government.

There are many things you can do now to reduce the risk to your family and property from flooding.

Whether you're integrating into current community plans or looking for ideas on how best to implement, our collection has numerous resources to help:

• Bring hazard mitigation into local planning
• Collaborate with local partners in my community
• Protect my home from natural disasters
• Get ideas for mitigation activities

Browse Collection of Risk Reduction Activities

Reduce your risk from flooding by buying or building outside of high-risk flood zones (areas beginning with the letters A or V on FEMA flood maps) or consider making changes to your home to protect it against future floods.

Learn more through the following resources:

Make sure you have a plan and supplies in place for when a flood happens. Visit the Ready.gov Floods page to learn what to do before, during and after a flood to keep you and your family safe.

Even if you are not located in a high-risk flood zone, remember that flooding can happen anywhere. One of the best things you can do when preparing for flooding is to buy flood insurance.

Flood insurance is available to all property owners, renters, and business owners —even properties outside of the high-risk areas. To get more specific information about your property’s flood risk and the coverages and cost of flood insurance, please contact an insurance agent.

Learn about historical flood risk and costs by viewing historical flood impact data to see how floods have impacted your state, according to data from  the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Storm Events database.

If you live in a coastal area, you should consider protecting your home against coastal erosion.

Before making changes to your home, contact your community's floodplain administrator (often an official in the zoning or planning department) to understand building and permitting requirements in your community. They can also provide information about federal and state grants and funding that may be available to help you too.