Report: Ocean City Leads Cape May County in Flood Claims in the Last 30 Years

Cape May County historically has the highest number of what are known as “repetitive flood claims” in the state, highlighted by 541 in Ocean City in the last 30 years, NJSpotlight.com reports.

The website recently created an interactive map based on claims data released by the state.

While many of the towns with the higher number of claims are located along the Jersey Shore, Cape May County was singled out as having the highest number of claims over the last 30 years.

The highest number of claims by a single town in the entire state was Wayne Township in Passaic County.

According to the report, the National Flood Insurance Program has paid $30,941,846 to properties with repetitive loss claims in Ocean City, and $5,645,058 to 44 property owners who have claimed “severe repetitive losses.”

The cost for severe loss payments constitutes 18.2 percent of the repetitive loss payments, according to the report.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency prepared the data for the Hazard Mitigation Report, according to the report.

A repetitive loss is defined as "any insurable building for which two or more claims of more than $1,000 were paid by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) within any rolling ten-year period, since 1978,” according to the report.

A severe repetitive loss is defined as a single-family property covered by flood insurance that has suffered flood-related damage that has called for four or more separate claim payments for more than $5,000 each and more than $20,000 total. It also includes any situation in which “two separate claims payments have been made with the cumulative amount of such claims exceeding the reported value of the property,” according to the report.

The Wildwoods have also reported over 100 claims in the last 30 years, according to the report.

Numbers in Cape May County are high despite the fact that the county wasn’t hit as hard as other parts of the Jersey Shore by Superstorm Sandy. Ocean County was hit hard by the storm, but data indicates the township reported 450 repetitive flood claims and 27 severe repetitive flood claims in 30 years, according to the report.

See the interactive map here.