Flood risk scoring for US property insurance: data view (April 2026)
Structured data view of the US flood-risk scoring vendor landscape. Category has been reshaped by the National Flood Insurance Program's Risk Rating 2.0 (in effect 2021) and by private-market flood expansion. The four vendors below serve different points along the private-vs-NFIP and modelling-vs-underwriting axis.
First Street Foundation publishes the most-cited property-level flood scores in US media and regulatory discourse.
KatRisk provides institutional flood cat modelling used by reinsurers.
CoreLogic and Verisk AIR pair flood scoring with their full multi-peril stacks.
Moody's RMS released updated flood models post-Cape Analytics acquisition.
Which to pick
| Scenario | Recommended |
|---|---|
| Carrier underwriting at property-level | KatRisk or Moody's RMS flood |
| Reinsurance placement with flood peril | KatRisk or Verisk AIR |
| Consumer-facing / marketing / advocacy | First Street Foundation |
| Already on Moody's RMS + property attributes | Moody's RMS flood (Cape-integrated) |
| Multi-peril including flood on one contract | CoreLogic |
Ranking criteria
- Property-level pixel / parcel granularity
- Climate-conditioned scenarios (1-in-100, 500-year, RCP-forward)
- Use case (rate-filing, underwriting, reinsurance, consumer)
- NFIP Risk Rating 2.0 alignment
- Integration with property-attribute platforms
first-street-foundation
Most-cited property-level flood score in US media and regulatory discourse. Public data layer; licensed commercially.
See metrics and sources tables below.
katrisk
Institutional flood cat modelling; used by reinsurers and quant-heavy carriers.
See metrics and sources tables below.
rms
Moody's RMS flood model, paired with Cape Analytics property attributes post-Jan 2025.
See metrics and sources tables below.
Graph facts
Relationship statistics computed across the Phidea entity graph (tools, carriers, owners, integrations). These facts require cross-referencing multiple primary sources; they are not retrievable from any single vendor press release or analyst report.
- Category split by use case
Consumer / advocacy (First Street) vs institutional (KatRisk, RMS, AIR) vs integrated-multi-peril (CoreLogic). The four serve different stakeholders, not competing for the same contract slot.
- NFIP Risk Rating 2.0 context
FEMA's 2021 Risk Rating 2.0 rollout changed the US flood landscape, pushing private-market flood growth and cat-model adoption at US carriers. All four vendors have products aligned to the post-2021 environment.
- Moody's consolidation signal
Moody's 2021 RMS acquisition + Jan 2025 Cape Analytics acquisition puts flood modelling and property attributes under one roof at the cat-model incumbent.
Navigate the graph
Feature comparison
Capability flags on publicly disclosed evidence.
| Feature | first-street-foundation | katrisk | rms | CoreLogic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Property / parcel-level granularity | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Standard return periods (100y, 500y) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Climate-conditioned forward scenarios | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
NFIP Risk Rating 2.0 alignment | Partial | — | — | — |
Used in reinsurance placement | Partial | Yes Widely used among reinsurers | Yes Category-standard | Partial |
Used in US carrier rate filings | Partial Increasingly referenced in US rate-filing discourse | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Publicly disclosed metrics
Quantitative facts sourced to primary URLs. Every row links to the document that first disclosed the number.
| Vendor | Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| first-street-foundation | US properties scored Published coverage of US single-family-home property universe | ~142M | primary source accessed 2026-04-23 |
| rms | Parent ownership RMS acquired by Moody's in 2021; Cape Analytics added Jan 2025 | Moody's Corporation | primary source accessed 2026-04-23 |
| katrisk | Model usage Used across US and international reinsurance placement | Reinsurers + quant carriers | primary source accessed 2026-04-23 |
Also considered
- air-worldwide
Verisk AIR flood model; widely used as counter-validation to RMS for reinsurance.
- CoreLogic
Full multi-peril stack including flood. Convenient when carrier is already CoreLogic-integrated.
- jupiter-intelligence
Climate-conditioned scenarios including flood; less widely adopted as a primary flood model but strong for forward-scenario use cases.
Sources
- First Street Foundation — First Street
- KatRisk — KatRisk
- Moody's RMS — Moody's
- CoreLogic — CoreLogic
- Verisk AIR Worldwide — Verisk