Coastal Insurance in Yarmouth: An Honest Gap on CRS Status, and What's Actually Confirmed
Here's the most useful thing this page can tell a Yarmouth buyer up front: nobody should assume a specific FEMA flood-insurance discount for this town. Two research passes tried to confirm Yarmouth's Community Rating System (CRS) class and discount percentage, and both came up empty - FEMA's Community Status Book and the Massachusetts CRS state-profile PDF were both inaccessible this session. Rather than guess or borrow a neighboring town's number, this page states that gap plainly and lays out what is actually confirmed: an active, current town hazard-planning effort, a shared Lewis Bay water-quality responsibility with Barnstable, and the honest limits of what wasn't found. Nothing here is insurance advice; confirm current CRS status and premium figures directly with FEMA, a licensed Massachusetts insurance agent, and the Town of Yarmouth before you budget around any of it.
Yarmouth's CRS Class: Not Confirmed - and Not Something to Assume
This is the correction worth making plainly before anything else: Yarmouth's specific FEMA Community Rating System class and flood-insurance discount percentage were not found or confirmed in research. FEMA's Community Status Book and the Massachusetts CRS state-profile PDF were both inaccessible this session, which means there's no sourced number to report - not a discount percentage, not a class rating, not even a confirmed "not yet rated" status the way Barnstable's active-applicant status is confirmed.
That matters because CRS status varies widely town by town on Cape Cod, and it's easy to assume one town looks like the next. It doesn't work that way here: Mashpee carries a confirmed 15% CRS discount, Barnstable is a confirmed active applicant not yet earning a discount, and Yarmouth's status simply isn't confirmed either way in this research. A buyer comparing a Yarmouth flood-insurance quote to a neighboring town's discounted premium should not assume Yarmouth matches either example - the honest answer is to ask directly. Check FEMA's Community Status Book, or call the Yarmouth Building or Health Department, and get Yarmouth's actual current CRS class before you build it into a budget.
Active Coastal-Hazard Planning: A Bluffs Toolkit and a Hazard Mitigation Plan Update in Progress
What is confirmed is that Yarmouth is currently, actively working on coastal-hazard planning, even though this research couldn't pull the full contents of that work. The town published an August 2025 "Coastal Bluffs" resident toolkit, aimed at giving property owners along Yarmouth's bluff areas practical guidance on erosion risk.
Separately, Yarmouth is in the middle of a 2025 Hazard Mitigation Plan update: a public survey has already been conducted, and a draft mitigation-actions table is dated January 29, 2026. Neither of these documents' full contents were accessible this session, so this page can't summarize their specific recommendations - but their existence and their recent, current dates are themselves useful evidence that Yarmouth's hazard planning isn't stale or dormant. A buyer or agent who wants the specifics should ask the Town of Yarmouth directly for the current Hazard Mitigation Plan draft and the Coastal Bluffs toolkit.
Lewis Bay: A Shared Watershed with Barnstable, Not a Yarmouth-Only Number
Lewis Bay's water quality is a genuine shared responsibility, not a Yarmouth-specific data point. Mass.gov's Final Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report for Lewis Bay Total Nitrogen confirms that the Lewis Bay watershed lies entirely within Barnstable and Yarmouth, and it credits both towns with proactive wastewater planning that predates the TMDL itself - a genuinely positive, confirmed fact for both towns.
What the TMDL doesn't do is break nitrogen loading out by town; it treats the embayment at the bay-wide level. That means there's no sourced, Yarmouth-specific nitrogen number to cite here, and this page won't invent one. The honest framing is that Lewis Bay's water quality is a joint Barnstable-Yarmouth responsibility, with both towns already investing in wastewater planning ahead of the regulatory requirement - a shared story, not a Yarmouth-only statistic.
Hurricane History: No Yarmouth-Specific Figures Found - Check the Cape Cod Hub Instead
No town-specific damage account for the 1938 Hurricane, Hurricane Carol (1954), or Hurricane Bob (1991) surfaced in research for Yarmouth. Only generic, Cape-wide coverage of those storms exists, and that regional context lives on the Cape Cod hub page rather than being repeated here as if it were Yarmouth-specific.
Rather than borrow a Cape-wide dollar figure and imply it describes Yarmouth alone, this page states the gap directly: if you want historical hurricane-damage context for the region, cross-reference the Cape Cod hub page. Nothing here should be read as a Yarmouth-specific hurricane-damage number, because none was found.
What This Page Cannot Tell You - Confirm Directly Before You Budget
To be direct about the limits of this page: it does not state a CRS class or discount percentage for Yarmouth, because none was confirmed. It does not state Yarmouth-specific hurricane damage totals, because none were found. It does not break out a Yarmouth-specific Lewis Bay nitrogen number, because the source document doesn't provide one. And it doesn't summarize the full contents of the Coastal Bluffs toolkit or the draft Hazard Mitigation Plan, because those documents weren't fully accessible this session.
Flood-insurance rates, CRS class, and hazard-mitigation status all change, and none of them should be assumed from a neighboring town's numbers or from this page alone. Before making a purchase decision, confirm Yarmouth's current CRS status directly with FEMA's Community Status Book, get a property-specific flood-insurance quote from a licensed Massachusetts insurance agent, and contact the Town of Yarmouth directly - the Building Department or Health Department - for the current Coastal Bluffs toolkit and Hazard Mitigation Plan materials. This page is not insurance advice.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from documented research on Yarmouth's coastal-hazard and flood-insurance profile: Yarmouth's FEMA Community Rating System (CRS) class and flood-insurance discount percentage were not found or confirmed this session (FEMA's Community Status Book and the Massachusetts CRS state-profile PDF were both inaccessible) and are stated here as an explicit gap rather than assumed to match Mashpee's confirmed 15% discount or Barnstable's confirmed active-applicant status; the Town of Yarmouth's August 2025 "Coastal Bluffs" resident toolkit and its 2025 Hazard Mitigation Plan update (public survey conducted, draft mitigation-actions table dated January 29, 2026), cited as evidence of active current planning though full contents were not accessible; mass.gov's Final TMDL for Lewis Bay Total Nitrogen, confirming the Lewis Bay watershed lies entirely within Barnstable and Yarmouth and crediting both towns with proactive wastewater planning predating the TMDL, without breaking nitrogen loading out by town. No Yarmouth-specific hurricane damage figures for the 1938 Hurricane, Hurricane Carol, or Hurricane Bob were found; see the Cape Cod hub page for regional context instead. Flood zone determinations, NFIP requirements, CRS status, and premium costs all change; confirm current figures directly with FEMA, a licensed Massachusetts insurance agent, and the Town of Yarmouth before making any purchase or budgeting decision. Nothing on this page is insurance advice.