Methodology: NFIP claims with recorded building payments
Every figure carrying this label on a county page is computed exactly as described below, from public government data. Nothing is estimated or editorialized.
| What it measures | NFIP claims with a recorded BUILDING payment > $0 |
|---|---|
| Unit | claims |
| Source dataset | FEMA — OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v2 |
| Data version / accessed | through 2026-05 (cube build 2026-07-21b, generated 2026-07-21) |
| Exact source fields | dateOfLoss, amountPaidOnBuildingClaim, countyCode |
| Formula | COUNT(fct_nfip_claim WHERE paid_building > 0) per county x loss-month |
| Predicates / filters | claims with amountPaidOnBuildingClaim > 0, bucketed by DATE OF LOSS year. The chart sums COMPLETE loss-years only (2020 .. last complete year); a partial current year is shown as YTD and never counted in the chart-grade total. NFIP has no payment dates, so we never claim payment timing. |
| Date semantics | DATE OF LOSS month; payment amounts are as-of the data vintage |
| Window boundaries | complete loss-years 2020 through 2025; the current year (2026) is shown as YTD and excluded from the chart-grade total |
| Rounding | none (integer count) |
| Suppression rule | chart + tile hidden below 5 complete-year paid claims |
| Minimum sample (min_n) | 5 |
| Geography | US county (FIPS) |
Internal build query
This query runs against our internal data cube (private cube_*/fct_* tables built from the public sources below). It is exact but not runnable by a reader — use the public reproduction recipe that follows.
SELECT SUM(n_paid)
FROM cube_county_year_paid
WHERE county_fips = :fips AND year >= '2020' AND year < :current_year;Reproduce from the public source
This recomputes the figure from the raw public dataset. Public data is live and may run ahead of our snapshot (see the data version above); numbers can differ by rows added since our ingest vintage.
OpenFEMA FimaNfipClaims v2 — fema.gov/api/open/v2:
$filter = countyCode eq '<fips>' and dateOfLoss ge '2020-01-01'
and dateOfLoss lt '<last-complete-year+1>-01-01'
and amountPaidOnBuildingClaim gt 0
$count=true (bucket by year of loss for the chart).Worked example: Harris County: 1,542 NFIP claims with recorded building payments across complete loss-years 2020 onward.
Change log
2026-07-21 (r3) — window boundaries corrected (no windowed metric reads "not windowed"); LIMIT/ordering/geography/status predicates documented; the query relabeled the internal build query and paired with a public raw-source reproduction recipe.
2026-07-21 — record published with source URL, exact fields, predicates, window boundaries, rounding, suppression, and a worked example. Prior records disclosed a formula only.
Corrections
Spotted an error? Corrections: [email protected]. We publish the fix and note it in this change log.
Independent professional (adjuster/restoration) review of the guidance built on these figures is pending and blocks release (D2). This record documents the data method only; it is not insurance, legal, or engineering advice.