Investigating the stochastic structure of the recently published Redacted Claims data set by the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program

During the last decades, scientific research in the field of flood risk management has provided new insights and strong computational tools towards the deeper understanding of the fundamental probabilistic and stochastic behaviour that characterizes such natural hazards. Flood hazards are controlled by hydrometeorological processes and their inherent uncertainties. Historically, a high percentage of flood disasters worldwide are inaccurately or ineffectively reported regarding the aggregated number of the affected people, economic losses and generated flood insurance claims. In this respect, the recently published National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) data by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), including more than two million claims records dating back to 1978 and more than 47 million policy records for transactions, may provide new insights into flood impacts. The aim of this research is to process the actual insurance data derived from this database, in order to detect the underlying patterns and investigate its stochastic structure, paving the way for the development of more accurate flood risk assessment and modelling strategies.