Flood insurance claims in Central Ohio, ZIP code by ZIP code, 1978 to 2026
FEMA publishes the National Flood Insurance Program's claims transactions, redacted to protect the policyholder, and each claim carries the ZIP code of the insured building, the year of the loss and, on many of them, whether the building had a basement. This page sets out those claims for the same 36 Central Ohio ZIP codes as the radon page, as FEMA's data carried them in September 2026: 1,487 claims from 1978 to 2026, the years with the most, and how often the flooded building had a basement. It prints no dollar figure, and a claim count describes insured buildings that flooded, not every building that did.
Last updated September 2026 · Claims are FEMA's OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims dataset, version 3, last refreshed September 9, 2026 and queried September 24, 2026 · No prices on this page; the Estimate Builder carries those · Part of the knowledge base
What a claim record is, and what it leaves out
FEMA describes the dataset as details on flood insurance claims transactions, derived from the National Flood Insurance Program's system of record and redacted to protect policyholders' personally identifiable information, and updated about monthly with a lag behind that system; the version read for this page was last refreshed on September 9, 2026. Each claim carries the ZIP code of the insured property as the insurer reported it, the date on which water first entered the insured building, and, where it was recorded, the building's basement type and its current flood zone.
Three limits follow from that. A claim exists only where a building carried federal flood insurance, so a ZIP code with few claims may simply have few policies. The basement type is recorded on 775 of the 1,487 claims read here and the current flood zone on only 327, so every share on this page is given with its denominator. And a ZIP code is a postal delivery area rather than a town, which is why no town name is attached to any of them.
Thirty-six ZIP codes, side by side
| ZIP code | Claims, 1978 to 2026 | First year with a claim | Year with the most claims (claims that year) | Claims in 2000 or later | Claims whose record gives a basement type: buildings with a basement or enclosure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43004 | 9 | 1989 | 2015 (2) | 7 | 8 of 9 |
| 43015 | 42 | 1980 | 1980 (6) | 29 | 21 of 23 |
| 43016 | 7 | 1981 | no year above 1 | 3 | 4 of 4 |
| 43017 | 19 | 1983 | 1990 (3) | 9 | 11 of 11 |
| 43021 | 2 | 1979 | no year above 1 | 0 | 1 of 1 |
| 43023 | 10 | 1979 | 2020 (3) | 5 | 2 of 4 |
| 43026 | 7 | 1979 | 1979 (4) | 2 | 4 of 4 |
| 43031 | 4 | 1979 | 1979 (2) | 2 | 2 of 2 |
| 43035 | 3 | 2019 | 2020 (2) | 3 | 2 of 3 |
| 43040 | 23 | 1979 | 1997 (9) | 5 | 9 of 9 |
| 43054 | 3 | 1998 | no year above 1 | 2 | 1 of 1 |
| 43055 | 185 | 1978 | 1979 (67) | 65 | 89 of 94 |
| 43062 | 36 | 1978 | 2017 (6) | 22 | 14 of 20 |
| 43064 | 15 | 1979 | 1997 (8) | 5 | 8 of 8 |
| 43065 | 32 | 1978 | 2005 (7) | 16 | 16 of 17 |
| 43068 | 197 | 1978 | 2026 (34) | 104 | 100 of 114 |
| 43074 | 6 | 1978 | no year above 1 | 2 | 4 of 4 |
| 43081 | 65 | 1979 | 2020 (12) | 43 | 21 of 40 |
| 43082 | 6 | 2009 | no year above 1 | 6 | 6 of 6 |
| 43085 | 60 | 1979 | 1979 (24) | 7 | 17 of 17 |
| 43110 | 11 | 1995 | 2000 and 2004 (2 each) | 8 | 8 of 8 |
| 43113 | 64 | 1979 | 2005 (24) | 54 | 18 of 19 |
| 43119 | 30 | 1978 | 1979 (7) | 11 | 15 of 16 |
| 43123 | 89 | 1978 | 1998 (31) | 30 | 48 of 49 |
| 43125 | 24 | 1978 | 1979 (8) | 7 | 6 of 6 |
| 43130 | 158 | 1979 | 2018 (20) | 110 | 109 of 120 |
| 43140 | 15 | 1979 | 1979 (4) | 8 | 10 of 10 |
| 43147 | 27 | 1979 | 1992 (5) | 10 | 19 of 21 |
| 43206 | 4 | 1979 | 1979 (2) | 1 | 2 of 2 |
| 43209 | 71 | 1978 | 1979 (26) | 15 | 40 of 41 |
| 43212 | 21 | 1979 | 1979 (9) | 3 | 5 of 5 |
| 43214 | 71 | 1979 | 1979 (21) | 15 | 28 of 29 |
| 43220 | 37 | 1978 | 1979 (13) | 6 | 17 of 21 |
| 43221 | 39 | 1979 | 1979 (33) | 2 | 6 of 6 |
| 43228 | 27 | 1978 | 1979 (7) | 5 | 8 of 9 |
| 43230 | 68 | 1978 | 1979 (23) | 29 | 15 of 22 |
Three ZIP codes account for more than a third of all the claims in the table: 43068 with 197, 43055 with 185 and 43130 with 158. The year 1979 has more claims than any other, 314 across these ZIP codes, with 67 in 43055 and 33 in 43221 alone; 2020 follows with 111, and 1981 with 94. More recent years are not quiet. 651 of the 1,487 claims are from 2000 or later, and in 2026, with the year not over, 43068 has already recorded 34 claims, more than in any earlier year for that ZIP code.
A basement or enclosure, nine times in ten
For the program's purposes FEMA defines a basement as any level or story which has its floor subgrade on all sides, and it records a claim's building as having a finished basement or enclosure, an unfinished one, a crawlspace, a subgrade crawlspace, or none. Of the 775 claims in these ZIP codes whose record gives a basement type, 694 were buildings with a basement or enclosure, 347 finished and 347 unfinished; 36 had a subgrade crawlspace and 45 had none. That is roughly nine claims in ten, among the claims that say. FEMA's code does not separate a basement from an enclosure, and 41 of the 694 were elevated buildings, which FEMA defines as having no basement, so no more than 653 of the 775 were basements.
The flood zone tells a second story. Of the 327 claims whose record gives the property's current flood zone, 238 were in zones FEMA calls special flood areas, A and AE, and 89 were in zone X, which FEMA's data dictionary describes as moderate or minimal flood from the primary water source, with pockets of areas subject to drainage problems. What the zones mean on a flood map is on the page on what goes wrong in a Central Ohio house, and the rivers, dams, levees and floodwalls of Central Ohio are on the page on Central Ohio floods.
Scope, plainly. These are insurance claims, not flood maps and not inspections, and they describe insured buildings in a postal delivery area, not any particular house. A basement that is about to become a bathroom is, in FEMA's terms, a level whose floor is below grade on all sides, and the page on radon test results gives the other reason to test it first; nothing here predicts whether any one basement will take water.
The short version. FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program data, read on September 24, 2026, holds 1,487 claims from 1978 to 2026 for 36 Central Ohio ZIP codes, led by 43068 with 197, 43055 with 185 and 43130 with 158. The year 1979 has the most, 314, and 651 claims are from 2000 or later. Of the 775 claims whose record gives a basement type, 694 were buildings with a basement or enclosure, and of the 327 that give a current flood zone, 89 were in zone X, outside the special flood areas. The page prints no dollar figure and describes insured buildings only.
Sources
Every figure, date and quotation on this page comes from one of these documents, read on the date given. Where two of them disagree, the page says so.
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, OpenFEMA Dataset: NFIP Redacted Claims, version 3, last refreshed September 9, 2026; read September 2026.
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, OpenFEMA API, NfipClaims version 3 (queried for 36 ZIP codes), queried September 24, 2026.
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, OpenFEMA data dictionary, NfipClaims version 3 fields, read September 24, 2026.
Common questions
How many flood insurance claims has Westerville had?
FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program claims data, read on September 24, 2026, holds 65 claims for ZIP code 43081 from 1979 to 2026, 43 of them from 2000 or later, with the most in 2020, when there were 12. ZIP code 43082 has 6, all since 2009. Those are claims on insured buildings with that ZIP code on the policy, not a count of every building that took water, and a ZIP code does not follow a city line.
Which Central Ohio ZIP codes have the most flood insurance claims?
Among the 36 Central Ohio ZIP codes read for the page, 43068 has the most in FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program data, 197 claims from 1978 to 2026, followed by 43055 with 185 and 43130 with 158. Together those three account for more than a third of the 1,487 claims in the set. 43068's heaviest year is 2026, with 34 claims recorded by September, and 43055's is 1979, with 67.
Do flood insurance claims in Central Ohio usually involve a basement?
Where the record says, mostly. FEMA's claims data defines a basement as any level or story with its floor subgrade on all sides. Of the 775 claims in 36 Central Ohio ZIP codes whose record gives a basement type, 694 were buildings with a finished or unfinished basement or enclosure, 36 had a subgrade crawlspace and 45 had none. FEMA's code does not separate a basement from an enclosure, and 41 of those 694 were elevated buildings, which FEMA defines as having no basement. The field is blank on the other 712 claims, so the share describes only the claims that state it.
What year had the most flood insurance claims in Central Ohio?
In FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program data for 36 Central Ohio ZIP codes, 1979 has the most, 314 claims, with 67 in ZIP code 43055 and 33 in 43221 alone. 2020 follows with 111 and 1981 with 94. FEMA's claims data records the date water first entered each insured building, and its flood event field is blank for every claim in 1979 and 2020, so neither the data nor any other source read for the page names the storm.
Can a house outside the flood zone file a flood insurance claim in Central Ohio?
Yes, and these claims show it. Of the 327 claims in 36 Central Ohio ZIP codes whose FEMA record gives the property's current flood zone, 89 were in zone X, which FEMA's data dictionary describes as moderate or minimal flood from the primary water source, with pockets of areas subject to drainage problems. The other 238 were in special flood areas, zones A and AE. The zone is blank on most claims in the set.
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