As flood hazard intensifies, total losses rise sharply, while insurance coverage often increases only marginally. This dynamic leaves communities exposed to a persistently high share of uninsured losses across a wide range of event severities.

 

The City of Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina, experienced some of the most severe flooding during Hurricane Helene. The event demonstrates how extreme precipitation and runoff can significantly exceed historical levels.

 

In March 2025, Moody’s Ratings revised the outlook on the county’s Aaa rating to negative, reflecting expected decreases in fund balances, partly related to Hurricane Helene. After the hurricane, county management reduced some spending to offset the revenue shortfall. Initial cleanup efforts were primarily funded by federal dollars but as the county was able to contract with the Army Corps of Engineers, which is paid directly by the federal government, it managed to return most of the clean-up funds received. On 15 April 2026, Moody’s Ratings revised the county’s outlook back to stable and affirmed the Aaa rating, reflecting recently balanced general fund operations in line with county policy targets – despite challenges related to Hurricane Helene – and an expectation that the county’s financial position will remain stable, among other factors.

 

Despite elevated flood risk across multiple modeled scenarios, insurance penetration in the county remains low, resulting in most losses being uninsured. Moody’s RMS model results indicate a flood insurance protection gap of around 88% in Buncombe County across a range of severities, from 1-in-100 to 1-in-250 and 1-in-500 loss events.

 

 

Intensifying risk and potential losses in a future scenario


Under an intermediate-emissions scenario, uninsured flood losses could increase on average by about 25% by 2050 to around $472 billion compared to the 1-in-100-year flood scenario (see Exhibit 7), with a similar protection gap of about 65%.

 

As the flood footprint expands in this scenario, counties with the largest potential uninsured losses of more than $5 billion include one additional state, New Jersey, as well as Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas – all with moderate credit exposure to physical climate risk. Insurance protection gaps would increase to 45%-90%.

 

The counties with losses above $1 billion expand across 16 states, with nationwide total loss exposure rising to 70% from 65% in the 1-in-100-year flood scenario, representing about 2% of total counties.


 

Exhibit 7: In an intermediate-emissions scenario, nationwide potential uninsured loss exposure could increase 25% on average by 2050 in a 1-in-100-year flood


Counties with highest potential uninsured losses extend over five states, with moderate-to-high credit exposure to physical climate risk