Updated: September 23, 2026
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Hurricane Helene came ashore on Florida's Gulf Coast in September 2024 as a Category 4 storm. The flood deaths came hundreds of miles inland. Freshwater flooding caused at least 94 of Helene's direct U.S. deaths, 77 in North Carolina and 15 in Tennessee, the National Hurricane Center found.
In the 23 western North Carolina counties in Helene's path, fewer than one home in 60 has an NFIP policy today. Statewide in Tennessee, fewer than one home in 100 has one.
After Helene, more people in western North Carolina's mountains bought flood insurance. In the 23 western counties, NFIP policies rose from 5,107 the day before landfall to 6,947 a year later, and the 2,659 new policies written in the 12 months after the storm were more than five times the 489 written in the 12 months before. Most of that gain has held: the counties had 6,756 policies on Aug. 31, 2026. Coverage is still thin. Buncombe County, home to Asheville, has 1,396 active flood policies, and across the 23 counties, NFIP policies cover roughly 1.5% of housing units. MoneyGeek's county-level analysis of renters' flood exposure found fewer than 1% of homes with NFIP coverage in 60 of the 100 U.S. counties with the highest uninsured flood risk for renters.
The mismatch Helene exposed shows up nationwide. MoneyGeek's analysis of FEMA, Census and flood risk data finds a Pearson correlation of 0.07 between a state's expected annual flood loss and its NFIP penetration rate, across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
That's close to no relationship. A state's flood risk says almost nothing about how many of its homes have flood insurance. Tennessee has $1.18 billion in expected annual flood losses and a 0.704% NFIP penetration rate. Louisiana's expected losses are lower, $986 million, and 18.7% of its homes have NFIP coverage. The likeliest explanation is where the purchase mandate reaches and how people perceive their risk.
MoneyGeek's Uninsured Flood Risk Score combines three equally weighted pillars: flood risk exposure (Expected Annual Loss plus share of losses outside SFHAs), coverage level (NFIP penetration rate) and map reliability (share of FEMA maps more than 10 years old). Higher scores mean worse coverage.
California ranks first because it has the most expected flood loss of any state, $11.73 billion a year, and NFIP coverage on 1.149% of its homes.
FEMA expects Arizona to lose $1.99 billion a year to flooding, the ninth-highest figure in the country. In Fathom's model, 82.7% of the state's flood losses fall outside SFHAs, the third-highest share, and 94.3% of its FEMA flood maps are outdated. The state has 21,851 NFIP policies across 3.2 million housing units, a 0.675% penetration rate.
Fewer than four in 1,000 Utah homes have flood insurance (0.328% penetration, 4,118 policies across 1.26 million housing units). Nearly all of its FEMA flood maps (93.6%) are outdated, and 88.7% of its expected annual flood losses fall outside designated flood zones, the highest share in the country. Of the nine states where more than 90% of maps are outdated, Utah has the lowest coverage rate. Its flood risk comes to $329 million a year in expected losses.
Nevada has the oldest flood maps in the country: 99.5% are more than 10 years old. Its NFIP penetration rate is 0.661%, against $517 million in expected annual flood losses.
Illinois ranks fourth in the country for expected flood loss, at $2.92 billion a year. By Fathom's estimate, 77.5% of the state's flood losses fall outside SFHAs, where no federal purchase mandate applies. The state has 5.5 million housing units, the second-most in the top 10. Of those, 0.551% have NFIP coverage, and 88% of its FEMA maps are outdated.
At $326 million a year, New Hampshire's expected flood losses are lower than those of every state in the top 10 except South Dakota. Its maps are the second-oldest in the country (97.2% outdated), and 80.4% of its expected losses fall outside SFHAs. About one home in 90 has an NFIP policy (1.095%).
Only three states have older flood maps than South Dakota, where 93.9% are outdated. Three-quarters of its expected flood losses (75.4%) fall outside SFHAs, and 0.577% of its homes have NFIP coverage. Its expected annual flood losses, $274 million, are the lowest in the top 10.
Tennessee's expected annual flood losses total $1.18 billion, more than Louisiana's, and 22,486 of its 3.2 million housing units have an NFIP policy, a 0.704% penetration rate. The other 3.17 million rely on homeowners insurance that doesn't cover flood, if they're insured at all. The state has 16.7% fewer NFIP policies than it did in April 2022, when Risk Rating 2.0 reached renewals.
Wisconsin's coverage rate, 0.389%, is the second-lowest in the top 10, behind Utah's. More than four in five of its FEMA maps (83.1%) are outdated, and 79.2% of expected losses fall outside SFHAs. Wisconsin's expected flood losses come to $1.12 billion a year.
Oklahoma lost 27.4% of its NFIP policies between April 2022 and August 2026, the second-largest drop in the country, and 0.457% of its homes now have NFIP coverage. FEMA puts its expected annual flood losses at $738 million, and Fathom's model places 69.7% of its flood losses outside SFHAs.
All 50 states and Washington, D.C., appear below, ranked by MoneyGeek's Uninsured Flood Risk Score, with each state's coverage rate, policy count, expected losses, share of losses outside SFHAs and map age.
Ranked by Uninsured Flood Risk Score (Rank 1 = most uninsured flood risk). Higher scores mean a greater mismatch between flood risk exposure and insurance coverage. EAL = Expected Annual Loss (FEMA's estimate of average annual losses from inland and coastal flooding, in dollars). SFHA = Special Flood Hazard Area (FEMA's designated high-risk flood zone).
N/A means Fathom U.S. Flood Risk Index data was not available for Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. Composite scores for those three jurisdictions are based on flood risk exposure and coverage rate only. See Methodology for full details.
1 | California | 93.5 | 1.149% | 169,518 | $11,730M | 82.1% | 92.0% |
2 | Arizona | 81.6 | 0.675% | 21,851 | $1,985M | 82.7% | 94.3% |
3 | Utah | 81.1 | 0.328% | 4,118 | $329M | 88.7% | 93.6% |
4 | Nevada | 79.7 | 0.661% | 8,922 | $517M | 74.3% | 99.5% |
5 | Illinois | 79.2 | 0.551% | 30,126 | $2,923M | 77.5% | 88.0% |
6 | New Hampshire | 79.2 | 1.095% | 7,153 | $326M | 80.4% | 97.2% |
7 | South Dakota | 77.4 | 0.577% | 2,405 | $274M | 75.4% | 93.9% |
8 | Tennessee | 77.0 | 0.704% | 22,486 | $1,181M | 72.0% | 92.5% |
9 | Wisconsin | 75.3 | 0.389% | 10,863 | $1,116M | 79.2% | 83.1% |
10 | Oklahoma | 73.5 | 0.457% | 8,168 | $738M | 69.7% | 86.0% |
11 | West Virginia | 72.5 | 1.036% | 8,948 | $859M | 58.0% | 92.5% |
12 | New Mexico | 71.6 | 1.405% | 13,563 | $641M | 68.8% | 86.3% |
13 | Arkansas | 71.5 | 0.771% | 10,871 | $628M | 54.5% | 91.9% |
14 | Ohio | 70.9 | 0.408% | 21,679 | $1,950M | 50.5% | 86.9% |
15 | Montana | 70.8 | 0.679% | 3,636 | $277M | 83.5% | 74.0% |
16 | Nebraska | 68.9 | 0.815% | 7,123 | $401M | 58.8% | 84.2% |
17 | Idaho | 68.4 | 0.574% | 4,679 | $383M | 78.5% | 70.5% |
18 | Vermont | 68.0 | 1.138% | 3,882 | $162M | 59.7% | 83.8% |
19 | Massachusetts | 67.6 | 1.863% | 56,752 | $1,004M | 74.3% | 74.5% |
20 | New York | 67.3 | 1.890% | 163,156 | $2,855M | 65.2% | 73.1% |
21 | Connecticut | 67.0 | 1.989% | 30,750 | $890M | 65.8% | 78.9% |
22 | Wyoming | 66.9 | 0.555% | 1,554 | $147M | 80.5% | 66.6% |
23 | Georgia | 66.4 | 1.500% | 69,151 | $1,599M | 53.9% | 80.1% |
24 | Kentucky | 65.4 | 0.833% | 16,967 | $1,269M | 56.9% | 74.3% |
25 | Missouri | 65.3 | 0.500% | 14,219 | $1,572M | 52.1% | 74.4% |
26 | Texas | 65.2 | 4.525% | 560,914 | $4,959M | 56.0% | 77.5% |
27 | Oregon | 64.6 | 1.193% | 22,418 | $870M | 73.6% | 65.4% |
28 | Michigan | 64.5 | 0.410% | 19,005 | $1,518M | 78.2% | 57.0% |
29 | North Dakota | 64.4 | 1.493% | 5,642 | $161M | 77.4% | 66.4% |
30 | Pennsylvania | 64.1 | 0.710% | 41,482 | $2,738M | 60.0% | 63.8% |
31 | Colorado | 63.0 | 0.593% | 15,643 | $960M | 76.5% | 57.0% |
32 | Alabama | 62.8 | 1.877% | 44,305 | $1,092M | 54.7% | 74.3% |
33 | Washington | 62.6 | 0.863% | 29,015 | $1,408M | 79.1% | 54.4% |
34 | North Carolina | 61.2 | 2.573% | 128,151 | $2,083M | 43.8% | 76.7% |
35 | Kansas | 59.2 | 0.497% | 6,468 | $634M | 70.8% | 52.2% |
36 | Minnesota | 58.9 | 0.242% | 6,236 | $1,275M | 77.7% | 44.2% |
37 | Mississippi | 58.8 | 3.536% | 47,754 | $513M | 34.8% | 85.5% |
38 | Virginia | 58.4 | 2.382% | 88,550 | $1,178M | 50.2% | 68.6% |
39 | Indiana | 56.3 | 0.500% | 15,029 | $1,212M | 53.9% | 53.4% |
40 | Rhode Island | 51.7 | 2.326% | 11,332 | $158M | 60.4% | 49.9% |
41 | Washington, D.C. | 49.5 | 0.583% | 2,140 | $132M | N/A | N/A |
42 | Alaska | 48.0 | 0.979% | 3,228 | $30M | N/A | N/A |
43 | Maine | 47.9 | 1.103% | 8,356 | $199M | 68.2% | 31.1% |
44 | New Jersey | 43.1 | 5.062% | 192,559 | $2,140M | 27.9% | 53.7% |
45 | South Carolina | 42.9 | 7.556% | 188,145 | $842M | 34.3% | 64.4% |
46 | Iowa | 42.6 | 0.626% | 9,058 | $725M | 57.5% | 21.0% |
47 | Maryland | 40.6 | 2.382% | 61,268 | $520M | 46.0% | 31.3% |
48 | Florida | 28.2 | 16.667% | 1,741,930 | $2,983M | 36.2% | 60.3% |
49 | Delaware | 26.8 | 5.300% | 24,989 | $236M | 21.5% | 26.4% |
50 | Louisiana | 25.2 | 18.676% | 396,854 | $986M | 42.5% | 64.9% |
51 | Hawaii | 22.6 | 11.280% | 64,525 | $625M | N/A | N/A |
FEMA puts California's expected annual flood losses at $11.73 billion, nearly 18% of the national figure and more than twice Texas's $4.96 billion, the next-highest. About 14.6 million of the state's 14.8 million housing units have no NFIP policy, more than in any other state, and Fathom's model puts 82.1% of its flood losses outside SFHAs, where federal rules don't require coverage.
That first-place rank depends on FEMA's newer model. The December 2025 update to the National Risk Index added flooding from heavy rainfall to its inland flood estimate, and California's expected loss rose from $410 million to $11.73 billion, the largest dollar increase of any state. On the March 2023 figures, California ranked second, behind Utah. Texas, which led on expected loss under those figures, now ranks 26th: its losses are second only to California's, but 4.525% of its homes have NFIP coverage, the seventh-highest rate in the country.
Louisiana (18.676%) ranks 50th in composite score and Florida (16.667%) ranks 48th. Both still have large flood exposure: $2.98 billion in expected annual losses for Florida, the third-highest in the country, and $986 million for Louisiana, per FEMA's National Risk Index. High NFIP penetration doesn't mean Florida homeowners insurance covers flood losses beyond what NFIP policies pay. (Fathom's model puts Florida's expected loss higher still, at $4.3 billion.)
Their high coverage comes from the purchase mandate. Both states have large numbers of mortgaged homes inside coastal SFHAs, where lenders must require coverage. Even so, about a third of Florida's expected flood losses (36.2%) and two in five of Louisiana's (42.5%) fall outside SFHAs, where no one is required to buy coverage. These shares come from Fathom's flood model. Don't apply them to the NRI dollar figures above.
Hawaii's 11.28% NFIP penetration rate, third-highest nationally, reflects island geography that concentrates population in coastal areas where SFHA designations are denser and lender requirements more common. Hawaii also gained policies while most states lost them: its count rose 8.8% between April 2022 and August 2026 (see Force 4). Fathom data is unavailable for Hawaii. Its composite score uses only expected losses and coverage.
Four forces keep 97 out of 100 American homes without an NFIP policy. The first three explain why most households never buy coverage. The fourth is newer: households that had it are dropping it as premiums rise.
FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps decide which parcels are in Special Flood Hazard Areas. Only homes inside those zones with federally backed mortgages must have flood insurance.
Many of those maps are out of date. In nine states, more than 90% of FEMA flood maps are over 10 years old, the Fathom U.S. Flood Risk Index shows, led by Nevada at 99.5%.
On average, states with older maps have more of their flood risk outside mapped zones. In the 10 states with the oldest maps, an average of about 75% of expected flood losses fall outside SFHAs, compared with 60% in the other 38 states with Fathom data. Utah has the highest share at 88.7%, followed by Montana (83.5%), Arizona (82.7%) and California (82.1%). A homeowner who sees "Zone X" on FEMA's flood map portal and skips flood insurance is acting reasonably on outdated information.
From 2014 to 2024, 29% of NFIP flood insurance claims came from outside high-risk flood zones, FEMA reports on FloodSmart.gov.
Outside SFHAs, flood insurance is voluntary, and few households buy a voluntary policy for a risk they've never experienced, especially when housing costs strain the budget.
That rule separates Louisiana and Florida, where lenders require coverage on many coastal homes, from inland states like Tennessee and Ohio. In both inland states, flood risk is concentrated in river valleys where most FEMA maps are outdated, and fewer than 1% of homes have NFIP coverage. Homeowners there have no warning on their maps and no lender requirement to buy.
Many Americans still think of flooding as a coastal risk. FEMA calls it the most common and costliest natural disaster in the country, and 90% of presidentially declared disasters involve flooding. From 2010 to 2023, floods caused nearly $144 billion in direct property damage (in 2023 dollars), and NFIP payments covered about $50 billion of it, or 35%, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found using NOAA and NFIP records.
MoneyGeek's analysis of FEMA data shows NFIP policy counts in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., fell 8% after Risk Rating 2.0 pricing reached renewals, from 4.84 million on April 1, 2022, to 4.45 million on Aug. 31, 2026. That is a net loss of 387,525 policies.
Risk Rating 2.0 tied premiums more closely to each property's flood risk and took effect for new policies on Oct. 1, 2021, and for renewals on April 1, 2022. Jesse D. Gourevitch, Max Snyder and Carolyn Kousky studied NFIP policy transactions from 2009 to 2024 and found that coverage fell as premiums rose. New policy purchases declined 11% to 39%, depending on the size of the premium increase. Existing policies fell 5% to 13%. New-policy declines ran from 25% to 60% in the lowest income quartile, compared with 7% to 32% in the highest income quartile, in the study's May-to-October 2024 window.
Texas lost 205,399 NFIP policies over the period, more than half the net national decline, and Louisiana lost 105,763.
Four states lost more than a quarter of their NFIP policies: North Dakota (27.5%), Oklahoma (27.4%), Texas (26.8%) and West Virginia (25.5%). Florida moved in the opposite direction, adding 68,939 policies, a 4.1% increase. Ten states and Washington, D.C., gained policies.
Cost may be part of the pattern. The average NFIP policy costs $1,241 a year across the 50 states and Washington, D.C., FEMA's Aug. 31 workbook shows, from $589 in Alaska to $2,280 in West Virginia. The 10 states with the highest average cost lost a median 12.7% of their policies since April 2022, against 2.6% for the 10 lowest-cost states. The relationship is weak, with a correlation of -0.21, and it compares today's prices with policy losses. It doesn't measure how much each state's prices rose.
Read the state table below as a trend. Housing turnover, lender enforcement, migration, private flood competition and recent storms all move NFIP counts. The table can't isolate the effect of pricing in any one state. The causal evidence on pricing comes from the Risk Rating 2.0 study.
All 50 states and Washington, D.C., ranked by percentage change in NFIP policy count from April 1, 2022, when Risk Rating 2.0 reached renewals, to Aug. 31, 2026.
1 | North Dakota | 7,785 | 5,642 | -2,143 | -27.5% |
2 | Oklahoma | 11,252 | 8,168 | -3,084 | -27.4% |
3 | Texas | 766,313 | 560,914 | -205,399 | -26.8% |
4 | West Virginia | 12,005 | 8,948 | -3,057 | -25.5% |
5 | Louisiana | 502,617 | 396,854 | -105,763 | -21.0% |
6 | Minnesota | 7,872 | 6,236 | -1,636 | -20.8% |
7 | Mississippi | 60,200 | 47,754 | -12,446 | -20.7% |
8 | Missouri | 17,768 | 14,219 | -3,549 | -20.0% |
9 | Kansas | 8,061 | 6,468 | -1,593 | -19.8% |
10 | Iowa | 11,134 | 9,058 | -2,076 | -18.6% |
11 | South Dakota | 2,924 | 2,405 | -519 | -17.7% |
12 | Arkansas | 13,101 | 10,871 | -2,230 | -17.0% |
13 | Tennessee | 27,008 | 22,486 | -4,522 | -16.7% |
14 | Ohio | 25,775 | 21,679 | -4,096 | -15.9% |
15 | Indiana | 17,835 | 15,029 | -2,806 | -15.7% |
16 | Idaho | 5,546 | 4,679 | -867 | -15.6% |
17 | Pennsylvania | 48,980 | 41,482 | -7,498 | -15.3% |
18 | Nebraska | 8,344 | 7,123 | -1,221 | -14.6% |
19 | Illinois | 35,200 | 30,126 | -5,074 | -14.4% |
20 | Alabama | 51,492 | 44,305 | -7,187 | -14.0% |
21 | California | 196,317 | 169,518 | -26,799 | -13.7% |
22 | Colorado | 17,901 | 15,643 | -2,258 | -12.6% |
23 | Georgia | 78,821 | 69,151 | -9,670 | -12.3% |
24 | Arizona | 24,755 | 21,851 | -2,904 | -11.7% |
25 | Nevada | 10,017 | 8,922 | -1,095 | -10.9% |
26 | Kentucky | 18,864 | 16,967 | -1,897 | -10.1% |
27 | Virginia | 98,352 | 88,550 | -9,802 | -10.0% |
28 | Montana | 4,003 | 3,636 | -367 | -9.2% |
29 | Oregon | 24,206 | 22,418 | -1,788 | -7.4% |
30 | Washington | 31,326 | 29,015 | -2,311 | -7.4% |
31 | Wisconsin | 11,673 | 10,863 | -810 | -6.9% |
32 | Michigan | 20,068 | 19,005 | -1,063 | -5.3% |
33 | North Carolina | 135,130 | 128,151 | -6,979 | -5.2% |
34 | South Carolina | 197,619 | 188,145 | -9,474 | -4.8% |
35 | Maryland | 63,558 | 61,268 | -2,290 | -3.6% |
36 | New Jersey | 199,434 | 192,559 | -6,875 | -3.4% |
37 | Connecticut | 31,845 | 30,750 | -1,095 | -3.4% |
38 | New York | 168,381 | 163,156 | -5,225 | -3.1% |
39 | Delaware | 25,410 | 24,989 | -421 | -1.7% |
40 | New Hampshire | 7,247 | 7,153 | -94 | -1.3% |
41 | Wyoming | 1,548 | 1,554 | +6 | +0.4% |
42 | Washington, D.C. | 2,109 | 2,140 | +31 | +1.5% |
43 | Rhode Island | 11,123 | 11,332 | +209 | +1.9% |
44 | Massachusetts | 54,553 | 56,752 | +2,199 | +4.0% |
45 | Florida | 1,672,991 | 1,741,930 | +68,939 | +4.1% |
46 | Utah | 3,796 | 4,118 | +322 | +8.5% |
47 | Hawaii | 59,328 | 64,525 | +5,197 | +8.8% |
48 | Maine | 7,287 | 8,356 | +1,069 | +14.7% |
49 | Vermont | 3,149 | 3,882 | +733 | +23.3% |
50 | New Mexico | 10,832 | 13,563 | +2,731 | +25.2% |
51 | Alaska | 2,206 | 3,228 | +1,022 | +46.3% |
Roughly 97 out of 100 American homes have no NFIP policy. If yours is one of them, your standard homeowners policy provides no flood coverage: a $400,000 policy pays nothing on $80,000 in flood damage. FEMA's Individual Assistance program provides some post-disaster relief, but its grants are capped.
You can buy an NFIP policy in most of the country, whatever your flood zone. Private insurers, including Neptune Flood and Palomar, also sell flood coverage, and some may offer broader or cheaper policies than the NFIP for certain properties.
You can look up your flood zone for free on FEMA's Flood Map Service Center. A Zone X result doesn't settle the question: your map may be more than a decade old, and in 40 of the 48 states with Fathom data, most expected flood losses fall outside SFHAs. Get a private flood quote and an NFIP quote before you buy.
If you're buying a home inside an SFHA with a federally backed mortgage, you'll need flood coverage before the sale can close. National Association of Realtors economists estimate that a lapse would affect about 1,360 home sale closings per day. When the NFIP lapses, sales that need a new NFIP policy to close can be delayed or canceled.
Congress moved the NFIP's deadline from Sept. 30, 2026, to Dec. 11, 2026, when President Trump signed H.R. 6500 on Sept. 2. The Congressional Research Service counts it as the program's 36th short-term reauthorization since the end of fiscal year 2017. No long-term reauthorization has passed since the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. The extension covers the rest of peak hurricane season, which runs through October. It does nothing about the program's debt or affordability problems. Because the extension is tied to the continuing resolution's end date, a government funding lapse after Dec. 11 would also lapse the NFIP.
If NFIP authority lapses after Dec. 11, FEMA cannot issue new flood insurance contracts. Existing policies stay in force until the end of their one-year terms, and the program's Treasury borrowing authority falls from $30.425 billion to $1 billion.
The NFIP has borrowed most of that $30.425 billion. It owes $22.525 billion, CRS reports, which leaves $7.9 billion before Congress would have to raise the limit, even without a lapse. A lapse would cut the ceiling to $1 billion, far below what the program owes, and FEMA could not borrow if claims outran its available funds.
Tennessee and North Carolina, the two states hit hardest by Helene's inland flooding, both have fewer NFIP policies now than at the end of 2025, more than a year after the storm: 22,486 vs. 23,106 in Tennessee and 128,151 vs. 131,721 in North Carolina.
For decades, federal flood maps have told tens of millions of inland homeowners they don't need flood coverage, and those homeowners have reasonably believed them. Updated maps would show more of them their current risk. The Risk Rating 2.0 research shows the limit of that fix: when premiums rose, existing policies fell 5% to 13%. Better maps can get people to buy. Whether they keep paying is a pricing question.
The next read comes on Dec. 11, when the NFIP's authorization runs out again, and in FEMA's monthly policy counts, which will show whether Texas, Tennessee and the other 38 states losing policies keep losing them.
MoneyGeek analyzed uninsured flood risk across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., using five primary sources: FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program (active policies as of Aug. 31, 2026, via FEMA's "Policy Information by State" workbook), FEMA's OpenFEMA NFIP policy transaction records (April 1, 2022, baseline for the policy-change analysis), FEMA's National Risk Index (expected annual loss from inland and coastal flooding, NRI v1.20, December 2025), the Fathom U.S. Flood Risk Index (FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map age and percentage of expected annual loss outside FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas) and the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (total housing units, 1-year estimates, 2023).
Nathan Paulus is the Senior Director of Content and SEO at MoneyGeek, where he leads content strategy and conducts original data research across insurance, consumer costs, transportation safety, housing, public policy and personal finance. He reviews studies for methodology, source quality and factual accuracy.
Research and Analysis
In more than six years at MoneyGeek, Nathan has published more than 100 original studies and explanatory guides. His insurance research includes 50-state comparisons of health care outcomes, costs and access, and an analysis of how uninsured rates track with state Medicaid expansion decisions and electoral patterns.
He has analyzed full-coverage auto rates across major insurers in all 50 states and tracked how premium trends relate to industry underwriting losses. That research draws on combined ratio data from Fitch Ratings and AM Best, plus the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI figures. Beyond insurance, his work spans vehicle pricing trends across the U.S. new car market, summer traffic fatality rates by state, homeowner underinsurance ratios using mortgage and policy data, and housing affordability across all 50 states.
His research has been cited by Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Fast Company, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today and NBC Los Angeles. Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Yale have referenced his work.
Career
Nathan traces his interest in personal finance back to his grandmother, who ran her household on a simple rule: spend less than you make and save the difference before anything else. That rule shows up in his work today. His writing skips jargon and complex strategy in favor of the basics that help someone living paycheck to paycheck.
He joined MoneyGeek in July 2020 as Director of Content Marketing, where he led the content team and oversaw data journalism production across insurance and personal finance verticals. A promotion to Head of Marketing and Communications followed in December 2023. The new role added digital PR and communications strategy to his responsibilities. He was appointed Head of Content and SEO in January 2025.
Before MoneyGeek, Nathan served as Director of Content Marketing and SEO at Ventrix Advertising, where he helped build two content sites from scratch, contributed to link-building programs that generated more than 1,500 unique referring domains within a year and co-managed a marketing team of more than 20 people. Two and a half years at ABUV Media preceded that role. He advanced from Marketing Research Analyst to Senior Marketing Tactics Analyst, where he built expertise in audience research, content strategy and SEO.
