Climate-disaster scores can make or break a home sale — but they are often wrong. What sellers need to know

Rebecca Holland

Thu, February 19, 2026 at 2:00 AM GMT+9 7 min read

As climate change fears have worsened over the years, extreme weather has become a serious concern for both insurers and homeowners across the country.

According to a report from Ceres in June 2025, insurers pulling out of areas that are at risk due to extreme weather events is creating a “global protection gap,” which is described as the difference between insured coverage and economic losses (1).

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The Ceres report also notes that this gap was projected to increase by 5% in 2025, totalling $1.86 trillion. An estimated 8% of homeowners are now without insurance as they either can’t afford to pay the skyrocketing rates, or simply can’t find an insurer to cover their high-risk homes.

Meanwhile, some sellers are now facing another concern that could cost them money: inaccurate climate-disaster scores.

As the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports, inaccurate third-party assessments of a home’s potential exposure to natural disasters on websites like Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com are potentially keeping buyers from being interested in viable properties. In fact, the WSJ reported in January that backlash from the real estate industry prompted Zillow to remove climate-disaster scores for its listings back in November 2025 (2).

As climate risks become more of a factor in real estate, it’s more critical than ever that the information available to potential homebuyers is accurate. Here’s why you should do your own research — or get an expert’s opinion — before making a call on buying a property, as well as what sellers can do about a bad climate-disaster score.

How sellers are impacted

John Simeone is one such seller who is having trouble selling his vacation property after it was inaccurately listed with an extremely high flood risk.

As he shared with the WSJ, Simeone’s townhouse in Lincoln, New Hampshire was given a nine out of 10 flood risk score on Zillow, which uses data from First Street — a “small but influential climate-research company” — for its climate-disaster scores (2). However, Simeone’s high flood risk score was reportedly linked to a First Street report for a different address.

Simeone believes the inaccurate assessment is the reason his property — which was listed in August 2025 — hasn’t sold, even after he lowered the asking price. He has since asked Redfin and Realtor.com to remove the climate-disaster score info from his listing. In the meantime, First Street has reassessed Simeone’s property and has given it a seven out of 10 flood risk score due to rainfall issues in the area.

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Simeone, however, is far from the only person impacted by these scores, as the WSJ reports. In fact, Andrew and Eri Uerkwitz of Chappaqua, New York sued First Street and Zillow over their high flood risk score, while Nancy and Gary Berrios of North Carolina reported that they’ve also been unable to sell their home for the same reason. Other homeowners have told the WSJ that scores from First Street are inaccurate and tough to change.

The problem with climate risk assessment models

As the WSJ reports, federal and state government flood and wildfire maps aren’t necessarily kept up to date with the latest risk assessments, which can jeopardize safety for existing and potential homeowners.

Because of this, the assessments from private companies like First Street are used by insurers to perform their modelling and set prices, even if said scores aren’t as accurate as they claim (3). Some experts, however, don’t have a lot of faith in how we currently assess climate risk.

“Accurately estimating future flood risk at every property in a single city or watershed — let alone the entire United States — is fundamentally not possible given current knowledge,” said James Doss-Gollin, a climate-risks specialist and assistant professor of engineering at Rice University in Houston (2).

But Matthew Eby, CEO and founder of First Street, says otherwise. According to Eby, an accurate national flood map is “not only possible, it has been done not just by First Street, but many other firms.”

“We stand by our data,” Eby assured.

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Given these differing viewpoints, it’s up to both homeowners and potential buyers to do their own research as best they can, especially when the WSJ notes that a single property could have widely differing climate-disaster scores from different assessment firms.

These inaccurate assessments are not only impacting individuals, as the data could shape whole housing markets, as well as inflate insurance prices at a time when rates are already rising rapidly. The Bipartisan Policy Center reports that property insurance rates have increased across the country for 26 consecutive quarters since Q4 of 2017, and home insurance premiums rose 40% faster than inflation between 2017 and 2022 (4).

Why homebuyers need to do their homework

While a climate-disaster score on Zillow may be enough to turn some buyers off of a specific property, this information can be misleading.

A local ABC News affiliate in North Carolina reported last year that John and Laura Haldane were also having issues with their First Street rating (5). The company, however, stated that the couple’s property was within an “area of known limitation within our model,” and that it has “reduced confidence in the flood results due to generous limitations.”

ABC News’ report also noted that First Street’s model assumes that all properties have some flood risk, and that no property is ever given a zero out of 10 rating.

For this reason, independent verification of potential climate issues is becoming essential for homebuyers. If you’re shopping for houses, you can look for services in your area which can assess the risk of climate-related issues for your desired property. You may even be able to negotiate through your real estate agent for the seller to provide this report, especially if the property is listed as high risk.

You should also do your own homework and seek out the scores from several similar companies — as well as government modelling — and take a look at the scores for properties in the same neighborhood.

How you can fight an inaccurate score for your property

If you’re trying to sell your home, you should be aware that it is possible to dispute a bad climate-disaster score with assessment companies like First Street. However, doing so is not always an easy process.

You can start by submitting information to the assessment company that disproves your current climate-disaster score and request a reassessment. If that doesn’t work, try reaching out to websites like Redfin and Realtor.com to have the score removed from your listing.

You can also potentially get ahead of the problem by acknowledging the climate-related issues with your realtor and providing information about previous issues to potential buyers, or by paying for your own private assessment.

While dropping the price of your home may seem inevitable, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, a bad assessment might reveal some protective steps you can take to lower the flood risk or other potential damage to the property from severe weather, and making these changes — along with detailing them on your listing — could tempt buyers into considering your property more seriously.

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Article sources

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines_._

Ceres (1); The Wall Street Journal (2); KPMG (3); Bipartisan Policy Center (4); ABC News 9 (5).

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

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