Texas Faces Critical Flood Insurance Gap as Risk Rises Statewide

The sixth issue of the Neptune Flood Research Group report, titled Texas at Risk: Confronting the State’s Growing Flood Insurance Gap, delivers a comprehensive assessment of the state’s increasing vulnerability to flood damage and the alarming shortage of adequate insurance coverage. As climate change accelerates flood events and Texas’s population growth expands into high-risk areas, over 2.1 million properties face potential flooding in the next 30 years—yet fewer than 7% of residences statewide carry flood insurance.

Among the stark findings: traditional FEMA maps dramatically understate actual risk, identifying only 860,000 high-risk properties versus 1.15 million recognized by newer private models. This mapping discrepancy has allowed unchecked residential development in poorly rated areas, compounding exposure. Adding to the crisis is the aging infrastructure across the state, a significant share of outdated pre-FIRM homes, and the rollout of FEMA’s Risk Rating 2.0, which has pushed premiums up by 35% and dropped policy uptake by 30% statewide.

The insurance gap is especially severe in major urban and inland counties. For example, Dallas and Bexar Counties each have less than 1% flood insurance penetration, despite repeated flood disasters. Harris County, though relatively better at 21.7%, still leaves nearly 900,000 residential properties uninsured. The state’s most flood-prone counties like Galveston and Orange show higher insurance adoption, yet even here coverage is insufficient when compared to the concentration of flood claims.

The report urges urgent, multi-pronged action: investing in stalled infrastructure like the Ike Dike, improving enforcement of flood insurance mandates, expanding access to private flood insurance options, and modernizing risk mapping to reflect true exposure. It concludes that without decisive efforts to close Texas’s $44 billion flood mitigation funding gap and update both policy and planning, millions of residents will remain dangerously unprotected.