Flood insurance policies and claims — Sebastian, Florida

FEMA's records show 962 National Flood Insurance Program policy records rated to the City of Sebastian that run past October 12, 2026, in data current to September 8, 2026.

That count comes from the OpenFEMA NfipPolicies v3 dataset, filtered to policies rated under the City of Sebastian's NFIP community number, 120123, with a termination date after October 12, 2026 (FEMA NfipPolicies v3, Sebastian). The Sebastian records FEMA returns carry an asOfDate of 2026-09-08, so policies that renewed in the weeks after that date may not yet show the new term.

A count by ZIP code reaches further than city limits. The same dataset holds 1,266 records in ZIP 32958 with a term running past October 12, 2026 (FEMA NfipPolicies v3, ZIP 32958). Of those, 304 are rated under unincorporated Indian River County, community 120119, because ZIP 32958 takes in county land around the City of Sebastian (FEMA NfipPolicies v3, county share of 32958).

A record is not always one home. FEMA defines policyCount as insured units in an active status, and notes that a Residential Condominium Building Association Policy is stored as a single policy contract but insures multiple units (FEMA NfipPolicies v3 data dictionary). A condominium association in Sebastian therefore appears as one record however many units its policy covers. The 19,012 figure counts every Sebastian-rated record in the file, which FEMA describes as policy transactions, and FEMA dates the dataset's coverage from January 1, 2009 (FEMA NfipPolicies v3, all Sebastian records; OpenFEMA dataset metadata).

Most Sebastian flood policies insure buildings outside the high-risk zones: 751 of the 962 records in force are rated in Zone X, against 155 in Zone AE and 54 in Zone A.

The split comes from three filtered counts of the same Sebastian policy file: Zone X returns 751 records (FEMA, Sebastian Zone X), Zone AE returns 155 (FEMA, Sebastian Zone AE) and Zone A returns 54 (FEMA, Sebastian Zone A). Together those three zones account for 960 of the 962 Sebastian records (751 plus 155 plus 54), leaving 2 records rated under other codes.

The shares are simple division of each count by 962; 751 divided by 962 is 78.1%. Zone AE and Zone A together hold 209 Sebastian records (155 plus 54), or 21.7% of the city's policies in force. Roughly four of every five Sebastian flood policies in force are rated outside Zones A and AE. The zone itself and how the Sebastian maps draw it are treated on a separate page about Sebastian flood zones, so this page stays with the counts.

FEMA lists 249 NFIP claims in Sebastian's ZIP 32958 since records begin, and Hurricanes Jeanne and Frances in September 2004 produced 167 of them, two thirds of the total.

The total is a single count of the NfipClaims v3 file for ZIP 32958, also current to September 8, 2026 (FEMA NfipClaims v3, ZIP 32958). Each storm row below is its own filtered count of the same file by FEMA's floodEvent name, and the dates come from the claim records themselves (FEMA claim records for 32958).

The sources for each row: Irene, Floyd, Frances, Jeanne, Fay, Matthew, Irma, Nicole and Milton. Hurricane Jeanne alone accounts for 109 claims in ZIP 32958. The nine named storms in the table add up to 200 claims (12 plus 4 plus 58 plus 109 plus 4 plus 7 plus 3 plus 2 plus 1); the other 49 of the 249 claims in ZIP 32958 (249 minus 200) fall under other FEMA event labels or carry none.

Recent storms left few claims in the Sebastian ZIP. Hurricane Irma's 3 claims are dated September 10 and 11, 2017, Hurricane Nicole's 2 claims November 10, 2022, and Hurricane Milton's single claim October 9, 2024.

FEMA rates 85 claims to the City of Sebastian, community 120123, against 249 in ZIP 32958, because most of the ZIP's claims were rated to unincorporated Indian River County.

The city count is a filter on the rated community rather than the ZIP (FEMA NfipClaims v3, Sebastian 120123). Within ZIP 32958, 80 claims are rated to Sebastian (FEMA, 32958 rated to Sebastian) and 162 to unincorporated Indian River County (FEMA, 32958 rated to the county), so the county part of the ZIP produced about twice as many claims as the city part. The remaining 7 claims in ZIP 32958 (249 minus 80 minus 162) are rated to other communities.

The 2004 storms show the same pattern. FEMA rates 40 Hurricane Jeanne claims to the City of Sebastian, against 109 in ZIP 32958 (FEMA, Jeanne in Sebastian), and 12 Hurricane Frances claims, against 58 in ZIP 32958 (FEMA, Frances in Sebastian). Frances losses in ZIP 32958 are dated from September 3 to September 10, 2004, and Jeanne losses from September 24 to September 29, 2004 (FEMA claim records for 32958), so the Sebastian area filed two waves of claims three weeks apart. Those 52 Sebastian-rated claims from the two storms (40 plus 12) are 61% of the city's 85.

The two lenses come from two different fields. FEMA's claims dictionary defines the reported ZIP code as the 5-digit Postal Zip Code of the insured property as reported by WYO partners, while the rated community number is the six-digit designation identifying the rated NFIP community (FEMA NfipClaims v3 data dictionary). For Sebastian the ZIP answers what happened around the city and the community number answers what happened inside it.

Sebastian's 962 policy records in force sit well below Vero Beach's 1,805 and Indian River Shores' 1,711, and far above Fellsmere's 60, in the same September 2026 FEMA data.

The policy counts come from separate filtered queries for Vero Beach, Indian River Shores and Fellsmere, and the claim counts for Vero Beach and Indian River Shores. Vero Beach has filed 1,197 claims, about 14 times Sebastian's 85. A countywide policy count for unincorporated Indian River County did not return within FEMA's time limit on October 12, 2026, so that cell is left blank rather than estimated.

The class column is from FEMA's Community Status Book, which lists the City of Sebastian at Class 6 effective October 1, 2021, with a 20% discount inside the Special Flood Hazard Area and 10% outside it (FEMA Community Status Book, Sebastian). The county listing gives Vero Beach Class 6 from October 1, 2024, Indian River Shores Class 5 from October 1, 2025, Fellsmere Class 7 from April 1, 2026, and unincorporated Indian River County Class 5 from April 1, 2023 (Community Status Book, Indian River County). How a class becomes a premium discount is covered on the Sebastian page about the Community Rating System.

The FEMA counts are redacted program records updated about monthly, not an official federal report, and the City of Sebastian tracks its own flood work in yearly CRS progress reports.

FEMA describes the claims file as more than 2.7 million claims transactions, updated approximately monthly with a lag behind the program's system of record, and states that it is not intended to be an official federal report (OpenFEMA NfipClaims v3 metadata). FEMA's Community Status Book lists Sebastian as participating in the NFIP, with a Regular or Emergency Program date of April 15, 1980, which FEMA defines as the date the community first joined the NFIP, an initial Flood Hazard Boundary Map of February 8, 1974, a currently effective map date of January 26, 2023, and a CRS original entry date of October 1, 1992 (FEMA Community Status Book; Community Status Book data dictionary).

The city's response is laid out in its CRS Activity 510 progress report for 2024, prepared on the letterhead of City Hall at 1225 Main Street, Sebastian. It reports on the Floodplain Management Plan adopted March 3, 2020 (City of Sebastian CRS report, page 1), and names continuing work on replacement of all ditch culverts that intersect streets and replacement of the Concha Dam (City of Sebastian CRS report, page 2).

The Indian River County Local Mitigation Strategy list attached to that report carries several Sebastian projects: Elkcam Canal dredging and seawalls at $4 million, George Street canal dredging and seawalls at $4 million, Barber Street bridge replacement at $2.5 million and a $5 million Laconia Avenue extension with a new bridge over the St. Sebastian River as an evacuation route (City of Sebastian CRS report, page 4). A $500,000 culvert for the Stonecrop Main ditch alignment is also listed (City of Sebastian CRS report, page 5). The city posts these reports for 2022, 2023 and 2024 on its Floodplain Management Report page, with Sebastian City Hall at 1225 Main Street as the contact (City of Sebastian Floodplain Management Report page).

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the FEMA OpenFEMA website.