Insurance Claims Statistics & Trends
Insurance claims provide valuable insight into the real risks that Long Island residents, businesses, drivers, and homeowners face. From coastal flooding and storm damage to auto crashes, property losses, workers’ compensation claims, and insurance fraud investigations, claims activity helps show where financial losses occur and which risks are most significant across Nassau County and Suffolk County.
Unlike population, housing, or school data, insurance-claim records are often private or reported only in aggregated form. Insurers generally do not publish complete claim counts, payout totals, denial rates, or loss ratios by ZIP code, carrier, or policyholder type. However, federal and state sources do publish enough public data to identify important regional patterns, especially for flood insurance, disaster claims, auto insurance complaints, fraud reporting, and workers’ compensation activity.
This page compiles available public data on flood, storm, auto, property, workers’ compensation, insurance fraud, and catastrophe-related claims activity affecting Long Island, using FEMA, New York State Department of Financial Services, New York State Workers’ Compensation Board, New York Open Data, National Insurance Crime Bureau, and other public sources.
Long Island Insurance Claims Snapshot
| Claim / Risk Category | Nassau County | Suffolk County | Public Data Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFIP Flood Insurance Claims | High cumulative claim activity, especially in South Shore and barrier-island communities | High cumulative claim activity, especially in South Shore, North Shore harbor, and East End coastal communities | FEMA / OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims |
| NFIP Flood Insurance Policies | Active policies concentrated in coastal and flood-prone communities | Active policies concentrated along bays, harbors, barrier beaches, and low-lying coastal areas | FEMA / OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Policies |
| Catastrophe / Storm Claims | Major exposure from hurricanes, nor’easters, coastal flooding, wind, and downed trees | Major exposure from hurricanes, nor’easters, coastal flooding, wind, and downed trees | FEMA, DFS, NOAA, insurance-industry reporting |
| Auto Insurance / No-Fault Claims | Dense traffic, commuting patterns, and injury claims contribute to elevated insurance activity | Large population, major highways, commuter routes, and local crash activity contribute to elevated insurance activity | NYS DFS, DMV crash data, insurer complaint data, no-fault fraud reports |
| Workers’ Compensation Claims | Claims linked to health care, construction, transportation, retail, public-sector, and service employment | Claims linked to health care, construction, transportation, retail, public-sector, industrial, and service employment | NYS Workers’ Compensation Board |
| Insurance Fraud Activity | No-fault auto, medical billing, staged accidents, property claims, and storm-related contractor fraud are monitored | No-fault auto, medical billing, staged accidents, property claims, and storm-related contractor fraud are monitored | NYS DFS Insurance Frauds Bureau, NICB |
Note: This page avoids presenting unverifiable carrier-specific claim totals. Public insurance data is often aggregated, delayed, or limited by privacy rules. For flood insurance, FEMA’s OpenFEMA NFIP claims and policy datasets provide the most detailed public county-level source. For auto, fraud, and workers’ compensation activity, state-level and regulatory datasets are generally more reliable than local estimates.
Major Insurance Trends Affecting Long Island
1. Flood & Coastal Storm Claims
Flooding is the most publicly measurable insurance-claim category on Long Island because the National Flood Insurance Program publishes redacted policy and claims data through FEMA’s OpenFEMA system. Nassau and Suffolk both have major coastal exposure, with risk concentrated along barrier islands, bays, tidal wetlands, harbors, and low-lying waterfront communities.
- Flood claims are driven by hurricanes, nor’easters, storm surge, tidal flooding, heavy rain, and drainage problems.
- South Shore communities are especially exposed because of bays, barrier beaches, canals, marshland, and low-lying residential neighborhoods.
- North Shore harbor communities also face flooding risk, especially around inlets, harbors, tidal creeks, and steep shoreline drainage areas.
- Flood insurance is separate from standard homeowners insurance, and many flood losses are not covered unless a property has a separate flood policy.
Long Island communities with recurring flood exposure include Long Beach, Island Park, Freeport, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Lindenhurst, Mastic Beach, Patchogue, and many other coastal or low-lying areas.
2. Auto & No-Fault Insurance Claims
Auto insurance activity on Long Island is shaped by population density, commuter traffic, major highways, local road congestion, and New York’s no-fault insurance system. Nassau and Suffolk together contain millions of residents, hundreds of thousands of commuting households, and some of the busiest roads outside New York City, including the Long Island Expressway, Northern State Parkway, Southern State Parkway, Sunrise Highway, and major county roads.
- Common claim drivers include rear-end collisions, intersection crashes, side-swipe accidents, weather-related crashes, and pedestrian or cyclist incidents.
- New York’s no-fault system can generate medical and injury claims even when fault is disputed or not assigned in the same way as a liability claim.
- DFS and insurers continue to monitor no-fault fraud, staged crashes, questionable medical billing, and organized fraud schemes.
- Auto insurance complaint rankings and fraud reports are available through the New York State Department of Financial Services.
3. Property & Homeowners Claims
Standard homeowners insurance claims on Long Island can involve wind damage, roof losses, downed trees, fire, theft, water damage from plumbing failures, frozen pipes, ice damming, and storm-related debris. However, detailed homeowners-claim totals by county, carrier, ZIP code, or town are generally not released to the public in the same way that federal flood-insurance data is released.
- Storm-related property claims increase after major events such as Superstorm Sandy, Tropical Storm Isaias, Hurricane Ida remnants, nor’easters, and severe thunderstorms.
- Rebuilding costs, labor shortages, material inflation, and coastal construction requirements can raise the cost of claims.
- Water damage is highly policy-dependent; flood, storm surge, sewer backup, groundwater, and interior plumbing losses may be treated differently under insurance contracts.
- Policyholders should review wind, hurricane deductible, flood, sewer-backup, and replacement-cost provisions carefully.
4. Workers’ Compensation Claims
Workers’ compensation claims are tracked through the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board and reflect job-related injuries and illnesses. Long Island’s claim activity is influenced by the size of its workforce, its large health care sector, construction and trades, municipal and school employment, transportation, warehousing, retail, hospitality, landscaping, and service industries.
- Common claim types include sprains and strains, falls, overexertion, vehicle-related injuries, repetitive stress injuries, and workplace accidents.
- Workers’ compensation data should be read by accident year, filing year, claim type, and industry where available.
- Public workers’ compensation data is generally stronger at the statewide or regional level than at the town or ZIP-code level.
5. Insurance Fraud Activity
Insurance fraud is monitored by the New York State Department of Financial Services, including the Insurance Frauds Bureau, and by industry organizations such as the National Insurance Crime Bureau. New York’s fraud reporting has historically included significant no-fault auto activity, and DFS has reported that no-fault fraud represents a major share of health insurance fraud reports.
- Common fraud concerns include staged crashes, exaggerated injury claims, questionable medical billing, false property losses, contractor fraud, and storm-repair scams.
- Fraud data is usually reported through statewide investigations, complaints, referrals, and enforcement summaries rather than precise county-by-county public totals.
- Fraud affects premiums because insurers price coverage based partly on claims frequency, severity, litigation, investigation costs, and regional loss experience.
Key Facts & Details: Insurance Claims on Long Island
| Metric | Current Best Public Interpretation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Most transparent claim category | NFIP flood insurance claims | FEMA publishes redacted policy and claims datasets through OpenFEMA. |
| Most important coastal risk | Flooding, storm surge, tidal flooding, and wind-driven storm damage | Standard homeowners policies generally do not replace separate flood insurance. |
| Auto insurance risk drivers | Traffic density, no-fault injury claims, crash frequency, medical billing, and fraud monitoring | DFS publishes insurance complaint and fraud-related reports; DMV crash data provides safety context. |
| Workers’ compensation source | New York State Workers’ Compensation Board | Use WCB reports and open data for official claim categories and statewide/regional trends. |
| Fraud reporting source | NYS Department of Financial Services and NICB | Fraud statistics are usually reported as investigations, complaints, referrals, or statewide summaries. |
| Major historical catastrophe benchmark | Superstorm Sandy | Sandy remains the defining modern insurance and flood-loss benchmark for Long Island and downstate New York. |
| Biggest limitation | Private carrier claim data is not fully public | Homeowners, business, liability, and auto claim totals are often proprietary or reported only in aggregated form. |
Why Some Insurance Data Is Limited
Insurance companies do not generally release complete claim counts, payout totals, loss ratios, denial rates, or underwriting outcomes by ZIP code, policyholder, or carrier in a way that can be freely reused by the public. Regulatory filings, complaint rankings, and industry summaries provide important context, but they do not always allow direct county-by-county comparisons across every insurance type.
For that reason, this page emphasizes data categories that are publicly verifiable, such as FEMA flood-insurance data, DFS reports, workers’ compensation public reporting, disaster declarations, and insurance-fraud summaries. Where exact county-level claim totals are not public or not reliably comparable, the page describes trends rather than presenting unsupported estimates.
What This Means for Long Island Residents & Property Owners
- Coastal and low-lying properties face higher long-term flood and storm risk, even outside mapped high-risk flood zones.
- Flood insurance is separate from homeowners insurance and should be evaluated even when a lender does not require it.
- Auto insurance costs are affected by accident frequency, injury claims, no-fault rules, litigation, fraud patterns, vehicle repair costs, and local driving conditions.
- Homeowners should review windstorm deductibles, hurricane deductibles, flood exclusions, sewer-backup coverage, and replacement-cost provisions.
- Business owners should evaluate property, liability, workers’ compensation, business interruption, flood, and cyber coverage based on location and risk profile.
- After major storms, residents should watch for contractor fraud, inflated repair estimates, and pressure tactics connected to insurance claims.
Major Events That Shaped Long Island Claim Patterns
| Event / Risk | Insurance Impact | Long Island Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Superstorm Sandy (2012) | Major flood, wind, property, business, and disaster-recovery claims | Defining modern catastrophe event for Nassau, Suffolk, New York City, and coastal New York. |
| Nor’easters | Wind damage, coastal flooding, tree damage, roof damage, and power-related losses | Recurring regional threat across both counties. |
| Tropical Storm Isaias (2020) | Widespread tree, wind, power, and property damage | Demonstrated that non-hurricane tropical systems can still produce major claim activity. |
| Hurricane Ida remnants (2021) | Flash flooding, basement flooding, roadway flooding, and water-damage claims | Important reminder that rainfall-driven flooding can occur away from the shoreline. |
| Winter storms | Frozen pipes, ice dams, roof damage, slip-and-fall claims, and auto crashes | Seasonal risk for homeowners, businesses, municipalities, and drivers. |
For Additional Resources
For consumer insurance guidance, flood data, claims information, complaint statistics, and regulatory reports, visit the following official and public sources:
- New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) – Consumer insurance guidance, insurer complaint rankings, fraud reports, regulatory reports, and complaint filing.
- FEMA OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims – Redacted National Flood Insurance Program claims data.
- FEMA OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Policies – Redacted National Flood Insurance Program policy data.
- NFIP Flood Insurance Data – FEMA/FloodSmart flood insurance data tools, reports, and visualizations.
- New York State Workers’ Compensation Board – Workers’ compensation claims, employer coverage requirements, and public reporting.
- National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) – Insurance fraud, vehicle theft, staged accident, and fraud-prevention information.
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – Weather, storms, hurricanes, climate, and hazard information.
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – Disaster declarations, flood insurance, mitigation, recovery, and assistance programs.
Data Sources & Updates
Data Last Updated: June 2026.
The insurance-claims information presented on this page is compiled from official and public data sources, including the New York State Department of Financial Services, FEMA OpenFEMA, FEMA NFIP Redacted Claims, FEMA NFIP Redacted Policies, NFIP Flood Insurance Data, the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board, New York Open Data, the National Insurance Crime Bureau, NOAA, and other official disaster, insurance, and regulatory sources where applicable. Data is reviewed periodically and updated as new federal datasets, state regulatory reports, flood-insurance files, workers’ compensation reports, and insurance-fraud summaries become available.
Because insurance statistics come from multiple reporting systems, figures may not align perfectly across sources. Flood insurance claims, homeowners claims, auto claims, no-fault fraud reports, workers’ compensation filings, regulatory complaints, and disaster-assistance data each measure different parts of the insurance-risk landscape. Public datasets may also be redacted, aggregated, delayed, revised, or limited by privacy and regulatory rules.
