Massapequa Home Insurance: The Largest Average Flood Claim in Our Five-Town Comparison

Fewer claims, bigger checks

Massapequa's flood claims history is substantial on its own: 5,388 NFIP claims on record for ZIP 11758, $296.7M paid, the third-highest claims total of any Long Island ZIP in our full dataset. See the ranked table for how it compares.

What sets Massapequa apart is the average. Divide total dollars paid by claim count and you get $55,068 per claim here, ahead of every other town we've profiled: Long Beach at $50,840, Babylon village at $48,464, Freeport at $38,507, and Lindenhurst at $34,761. We don't know the exact reason and are not going to guess at one. The number itself is worth knowing before you assume a lower claim count means a smaller financial exposure.

Great water land

The name predates the insurance data by centuries. "Massapequa," historically written "Marsapeague," comes from the Massapequa people, Algonquian speakers and one of the 13 tribes of Long Island, a sub-group of the Lenape. It means "great water land." The hamlet covers 4.0 square miles, with canals running roughly a mile inland from the Great South Bay shoreline, in the Town of Oyster Bay, the same town that includes the Oyster Bay hamlet and Bayville we've already covered, on the opposite shore of the same town.

Massapequa Park, a separately incorporated village nearby, carries far fewer claims than Massapequa's own ZIP: 225 on record against Massapequa's 5,388. It's the same pattern we found between Huntington and Northport, and between Oyster Bay hamlet and Bayville: neighboring places, very different flood records. Confirm your specific ZIP rather than assuming a neighboring number applies to you.

What Sandy did to the canals

Sandy struck on October 29, 2012. Wikipedia's account describes the storm devastating much of Massapequa, especially south of Merrick Road, where surging flood water rose both along the shore and along the canals that run about a mile inland. Our claims data lines up with that account: 2,721 of ZIP 11758's 5,388 recorded claims came from that single year, the largest single-year share on record. Hurricane Irene the year before drove a similar pattern of surge across the wider south shore.

What this means for your policy

Flood, especially near the canals. A homeowners policy excludes flood damage everywhere on Long Island. In the mapped AE and VE zones, a separate NFIP or private policy is mandatory with a federally backed mortgage, and Massapequa's own numbers argue for pricing that coverage carefully rather than assuming a moderate estimate will cover a real loss. Start with our flood insurance guide.

Wind, everywhere. Expect a percentage hurricane deductible of 1% to 5% of your dwelling limit, under the uniform statewide trigger New York adopted in February 2026. Our hurricane deductible guide works through the math by home value.

If the market says no. Canal-front blocks near the bay likely fall inside the C-MAP coastal band that applies across the south shore, with the program's other prerequisites and no guarantee of placement. NYPIUA backstops Nassau County with its 2% hurricane deductible. A non-renewal notice starts a clock. Buying here? Run the pre-offer insurance checklist first.

Carriers. Appetite varies by block, elevation, and claims history, and it shifts often. We do not publish carrier lists because they go stale. An independent agent who writes the south shore regularly can tell you what is available for your specific address.

Massapequa by the numbers