Florida county
Insurance in Broward County
Broward is the county that stopped arguing about flood in April 2023. It is inside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone, more than a quarter of its homes were built in the 1970s alone, and fewer than one home in five carries flood insurance. The rain does not check which of those is true before it arrives.
County seat: Fort Lauderdale
What makes this county different
- Inside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone, with Miami-Dade, so the roof and opening protection standards are the strictest in the country.
- The single biggest slice of the housing stock went up in the 1970s, which puts roof age, roof-to-wall attachment and the wind mitigation form at the centre of nearly every homeowners quote here.
- Canal frontage is everywhere, and a canal is not surge. Much of this county's flood damage arrives as rain that has nowhere to drain, well away from the ocean.
- April 2023 produced thousands of claims in a single month, a large share of them on policies rated in a low-risk zone, and it is the reason a Broward flood conversation sounds different now than it did in 2022.
The flood record, from FEMA's own claims
Every figure below counts claim records in this county in the National Flood Insurance Program. The zone shown is the zone the POLICY was rated in, not the property's current mapped zone, which is the point: a claim rated in a low-risk zone is a claim on a house somebody was told probably did not need the policy.
- High-risk zone (A or V)31,13788.9%
- Moderate-to-low risk (X, B, C)3,90511.1%
Claims paid on policies somebody was told they probably did not need.
Flood claims in Broward, by the zone the policy was rated in
11.1% of them were on policies rated in a moderate or low risk zone, where flood insurance is optional and comparatively cheap. That is the answer to "I am not in a flood zone".
- High risk (A zones)30,41186.8%
- Moderate to low risk (X, B, C)3,90511.1%
- Coastal high risk (V zones)1290.4%
- Not classified in the source5971.7%
Flood claims in Broward, by year
Flood here is a recurrence rather than a possibility. The tall years are storms, and they are named below.
Recent storm years: 2012 Hurricane Isaac (888) · 2017 Hurricane Irma (1,917) · 2020 Hurricane Eta (1,382) · 2022 Tropical Storm Alex, Hurricane Ian (126) · 2023 April Florida Flooding (3,723) · 2024 June South Florida Flooding (657)
How deep the water was in Broward
Where interior depth was recorded, most of it was shallow. A few inches across a floor is a claim, not an inconvenience.
Interior depth was recorded on 3,283 of the 35,042 claim records for this county, so this chart describes those, not all of them.
Source: FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP redacted claims, retrieved 2026-09-07.
Source: FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP redacted claims, retrieved 2026-09-07.
How many homes here actually carry it
Broward has the widest gap in South Florida between what floods and what is insured. Flood is excluded from every homeowners policy written in Florida, so the share below is the share of households who would have anything at all after a week like April 2023.
- Has a flood policy125,20419.2%
- Has none527,19380.8%
Inside the mapped high-risk area, the share rises to 76.1%.
What people in Broward actually pay for it
Not a quote. This is what flood policies written in this county cost, and it is worth reading next to the take-up figure above: the reason four in five homes here have no flood policy is not usually the price.
Half of them fall between $667 and $1,198.
Read those two figures together, because they are both single-family homes and the comparison is like for like. Risk Rating 2.0 replaced zone-based pricing in 2021, and the price now follows the individual property rather than the map, so the zone a house sits in is no longer a reliable guide to what its policy costs. This is a county's worth of evidence for that.
| By what is insured | Typical | Middle half | policy terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-family home | $839 | $667 to $1,079 | 277,413 |
| One unit in a condo building | $513 | $382 to $686 | 20,830 |
These are National Flood Insurance Program policy terms effective on or after 2024-01-01, which is the pricing that came in with Risk Rating 2.0. The figure is FEMA's policyCost: premium plus the federal policy fee, the reserve fund assessment and the HFIAA surcharge, so it is what leaves a bank account rather than a quoted premium. Private flood carriers are not in this data. It is a record of what people here bought, not a quote for you, and a low typical cost partly reflects people buying less coverage.
Source: FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP redacted policies, terms effective 2024-01-01 onward, retrieved 2026-09-09.
The housing stock, and why it decides your homeowners quote
A county whose largest single decade of construction is the 1970s is a county having a roof conversation. The distribution below is from the American Community Survey and describes a five-year period rather than a single year.
When this county was built
Share of housing units by the decade they went up.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, ACS 2023 5-year, retrieved 2026-09-07.
The storms this county has actually claimed on
Named from FEMA's own event field on the claim records rather than from a list of storms that passed nearby. Note how many of this county's worst years carry no storm name at all: that is rain, and rain is the local risk.
| The years that produced the most claims | flood claims on record |
|---|---|
| 1999 · Hurricane Irene | 6,520 |
| 2005 · Hurricane Wilma | 4,853 |
| 2023 · April Florida Flooding | 3,723 |
| 2017 · Hurricane Irma | 1,917 |
| 2000 · No named storm on the records: ordinary rain | 1,487 |
| 2020 · Hurricane Eta | 1,382 |
| 2004 · Hurricane Frances, Hurricane Jeanne | 1,034 |
| 2011 · No named storm on the records: ordinary rain | 972 |
Source: FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP redacted claims, retrieved 2026-09-07.
What your city earns you off a flood policy
FEMA's Community Rating System gives a discount to communities that do more than the minimum on floodplain management, and the discount is set per community, not per county. The city ten minutes away can be earning a different one.
| City or town | In the high-risk area | Outside it | CRS class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pembroke Pines | 25% | 10% | 5 |
| Dania Beach | 25% | 10% | 5 |
| Hollywood | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Pompano Beach | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Weston | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Tamarac | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Margate | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Oakland Park | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Hallandale Beach | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Cooper City | 20% | 10% | 6 |
| Fort Lauderdale | 15% | 5% | 7 |
| Davie | 15% | 5% | 7 |
| Plantation | 15% | 5% | 7 |
| Sunrise | 15% | 5% | 7 |
| Lauderhill | 15% | 5% | 7 |
| Coconut Creek | 15% | 5% | 7 |
| North Lauderdale | 15% | 5% | 7 |
| Miramar | 10% | 5% | 8 |
| Coral Springs | 10% | 5% | 8 |
| Deerfield Beach | 10% | 5% | 8 |
| Parkland | 5% | 5% | 9 |
| Wilton Manors | Not in the Community Rating System | — | — |
| Lauderdale Lakes | Not in the Community Rating System | — | — |
Source: FEMA, NFIP Community Status Book.
Cities and towns in Broward
We work anywhere in the county. These are the incorporated municipalities inside it, from the beach cities to the western suburbs.
Every place named here is covered. A city gets a page of its own only when there is something true of it that is not true of the city next to it.
Most people arrive here in one of these situations
The four things people in this county ask about most, in the order they come up.
Flood zones
The zone on the map decides whether your lender forces you to buy flood insurance. It does not decide whether water can get into your house.
Roofs over 15 years
Roof age is the number one reason South Florida homeowners get non-renewed. It is also the most fixable, and there is a route that does not begin…
Wind mitigation
One inspection, one state form, five years of credits. It is the highest return on a few hundred dollars available on a Florida homeowners policy…
Citizens takeout offers
This is the most under-answered high-intent question in Florida insurance, so here is the whole thing in plain words, including the part that is not…
Work it out before anybody sells you anything
Four calculators that run in your browser, a page for every situation Florida puts people in, and the claims data for your own county. All of it free, and none of it behind a form. The form is for the other half of the job: when you have read enough and want a person on the phone.
Leave a name and a number and a licensed Florida agent gets in touch. No obligation, and no call from six companies you have never heard of.
A licensed Florida agent may call, text or email you about your request.