Plain answers about what RiskIndex is, where the data comes from, and how to use it. See also the data catalog and sources.
RiskIndex gives a composite geographic risk score (0–100) for every US county and ZIP code, built from 16 official government datasets: FEMA natural hazard, NHTSA road safety and FBI crime, plus US Census income, EPA environment, CMS/CDC/HRSA health and NOAA storms. It also covers 56 Canadian regions for crime severity and household income.
Every number comes from an official US or Canadian government source, published under open-data terms (US federal public domain or the Open Government Licence – Canada). We use no scraped or proprietary data. Each source and its last-refreshed date is listed on our Data Sources page.
No. Scores are statistical percentile comparisons between areas. A composite of 80 means an area ranks riskier than 80% of US counties. It is never a forecast that an event will or will not happen, and never a statement about a specific property or person.
The composite is 45% natural hazard (FEMA National Risk Index) plus 30% road safety (NHTSA fatal crashes) plus 25% crime (FBI Crime Data Explorer). Each component is a 0–100 percentile across all US counties. Grades run from A (lowest risk) to F (highest).
County lookups return the full composite. ZIP lookups add a ZIP-specific natural-hazard score, computed as the land-area-weighted mean of FEMA census-tract scores within the ZIP's ZCTA, then attach the primary county's full profile.
The public website lets you see a free grade and component scores for any location. The full report (all hazards, crime, income, health, environment and a downloadable PDF) is a one-time $9.99. For developers, the API has a free evaluation tier for registered businesses, then commercial plans from $14.99/month.
Commercial API use requires a paid plan, starting at $14.99/month. The free API tier is for businesses evaluating the API.
Yes, for 56 provinces, territories and metro areas: Crime Severity Index and 2021 Census household income from Statistics Canada. Canada has no FEMA-equivalent hazard index, so Canadian regions do not receive a composite risk score.
No. RiskIndex is not a consumer reporting agency and its data is not a consumer report under the US Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). It may not be used as a factor in any individual's eligibility for credit, insurance, employment or housing.
We refresh each source on a schedule matched to how often the agency publishes — weekly to annually. Most government sources update annually. The live last-refreshed date for every source is on the Data Sources page.
