The Government Accountability Office reported October 1 that 86 percent of U.S. properties it classifies as high flood risk carried no National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) coverage as of April 2026. It identifies four changes that could raise coverage, and says each would require statutory authority from Congress.
How GAO counted
GAO matched NFIP policy records to flood scores from First Street, a private risk-modeling company that rates a property 1 to 10 on the likelihood and projected depth of flooding; GAO treated 4 or higher as high risk. By that measure it estimates about 13 million high-risk properties sit outside the FEMA-mapped special flood hazard areas (SFHAs) that trigger the mandatory-purchase rule — well above the roughly 4 million FEMA's maps place inside those zones. Coverage stayed low even at the top: among properties scoring 10, 26 percent had NFIP coverage.
Why coverage is low
The mandatory-purchase rule, which applies only inside an SFHA to a mortgaged property, is "the primary driver of flood insurance purchase": an estimated 43 percent of properties in SFHAs had coverage, against 2 percent outside them, and FEMA's maps do not capture all flood risks, especially heavy rainfall. Price matters too: FEMA's Risk Rating 2.0, begun in October 2021, moves premiums toward each property's own risk, and stakeholders named rising premiums and affordability as primary reasons owners drop or decline coverage. GAO also documented misperceptions — that land outside an SFHA carries no risk, that homeowners insurance covers flood damage (most policies exclude it), or that federal disaster aid will cover a loss. For flood-related events from 2015 to 2025, it puts the average inflation-adjusted disaster payment at about $3,500, against about $88,700 for the average NFIP residential claim.
Who is exposed
In GAO's analysis of First Street data as of January 2024, the highest shares of high-risk properties were in Louisiana (45 percent), West Virginia (34 percent) and Florida (26 percent). Coverage did not track risk: less than 2 percent of West Virginia properties had flood insurance. Among four communities GAO visited, coverage of high-risk properties ranged from 5 percent in Buncombe County, North Carolina, hit by Hurricane Helene in 2024, to 52 percent in Orleans Parish, Louisiana.
What GAO recommends, and to whom
GAO's four proposals are "Matters for Congressional Consideration" — addressed to Congress, not recommendations to an agency: update the mandatory-purchase criteria to include all sources of flood risk, naming heavy rainfall; direct FEMA to collect and publish property-level flood-risk data; require lenders on federally backed mortgages to give homebuyers a flood-insurance quote before closing, and a signed risk disclosure if a buyer declines; and raise NFIP's coverage limits, now $250,000 for a one-to-four-family residential building, with a mechanism to adjust them periodically.
Agency reaction
GAO sent its draft to the Departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The Rural Housing Service, for Agriculture, supported the data-publication and coverage-limit matters but not the other two: widening the purchase criteria would significantly increase housing costs, it said, and a pre-closing quote and signed declination would create delays, documentation burdens and legal exposure. GAO said it stands by both. FEMA, for Homeland Security, gave technical comments only. HUD, VA and FHFA did not comment.