Townline

Building permit data for insurance underwriting

New permits on the properties you insure and the ones you quote: roof replacements, electrical service upgrades, boilers, pools, solar, additions and new construction, each with the address, map coordinates, date and description of the work, and the job value when the town records it. Match them to your book by address, every day or every week.

Tell us your market and we’ll send recent records from it.

New permits at insured addresses
Example
Home
Roof replacement, tear-off to the deck
Single-family home · Milford, CT 06460
Oct 20
Home
Electrical service upgrade to 200 A
Single-family home · Scarsdale, NY 10583
Oct 21
Home
In-ground pool with fence and alarm
Single-family home · Smithtown, NY 11787
Oct 22
Building
Kitchen hood and fire suppression system
Commercial · Stamford, CT 06901
Oct 23
Home
Two-story rear addition, 640 sq ft
Single-family home · Westfield, NJ 07090
Oct 24
Example: a list of insured addresses, matched to the permit feed
680,000+
permits issued in the last 12 months
93%
geocoded
16,700
roofing and siding permits on homes
The data

What each permit tells an underwriter.

A permit records work on a property, with its date and often its job value. Matched to a policy by address, it shows what changed between renewals.

Address
Street address, town and county, with map coordinates on 93% of permits.
The work
The permit type, the description as filed, and trade tags: roofing, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, solar, pools, demolition.
Job value
The valuation filed with the permit, on 58% of permits.
Property
Single-family, multi-family, commercial or other, where we can match the property.
Dates and status
Issue date, status and each status change we see, with the date we saw it.
Contractor
On 29% of permits overall, and less often on single-family homes.
Examples

One home's permits, and the work that changes risk.

Cards marked Example use stand-in names and figures; the charts show real counts. A sample shows real records from your market.

Permits at one addressExample
Single-family home
Fairfield, CT 06824
  1. Roof replacement
    Valuation $24,000
    Mar 2025
  2. Electrical service upgrade to 200 A
    Valuation $6,500
    Nov 2025
  3. Roof-mounted solar, 8.4 kW
    Valuation $25,200
    Jun 2026
  4. In-ground pool
    Valuation $68,000
    Sep 2026
Permits by kind of job
All property types, last 12 months
Boiler & water heater19.5k
Roof replacement18.8k
HVAC replacement18.5k
Electrical panel upgrade6.0k
Home addition4.8k
Generator4.8k
Finished basement3.5k
In-ground pool1.0k
Sorted by what the permit describes. Most permits fit none of these.
How it’s used

How insurers use it.

01

Review risk at renewal

Match new permits to policies by address. A new roof, a 200 A service or a new boiler changes the risk; a pool, an addition or a solar array changes what you cover.

02

Catch unreported changes

Additions, finished basements, pools and solar show up as permits, often with a job value, whether or not anyone tells the agent.

03

Find new commercial risks

New restaurants and businesses moving into commercial space, before they open, for BOP and package quotes.

04

Builder's risk and contractors

Large projects at permit stage, sorted by job value, with the contractor when the town records one.

Delivery

Pull what changed, not the whole file.

Every dataset is a feed with a cursor, delivered by API. Run it hourly, daily or weekly, and never re-download yesterday’s records.

01
Changes, not dumps — Your first pull returns the backlog. After that, each pull returns only what's new or changed since the last one: new records, status changes, and new filings on a place you already have.
02
Search when you need it — Look up permits by county, town, trade, property type, status, date or keyword, sorted by date or valuation.
03
One key for your team — JSON over HTTPS, up to 1,000 records a call, limited to the areas you license.
GET /v1/permit-events?sinceSeq=902114
x-api-key: ••••••••••••

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "p_…",
      "regionId": "new-haven-ct",
      "muni": "City of Milford",
      "permitType": "Building",
      "description": "Roof replacement, tear-off to the deck",
      "status": "Issued",
      "issuedDate": "2026-10-20",
      "valuation": 24000,
      "address": "…",
      "latitude": 41.22, "longitude": -73.06,
      "trades": [{ "id": "roofing-siding-gutters", … }],
      "statusEvents": [ … ]
    }
  ],
  "nextSeq": "902611",
  "hasMore": false
}
Coverage

The tri-state, county by county.

Building and home permits in 46 counties: every one in New Jersey and Connecticut, sixteen in New York, and Philadelphia. New restaurants across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, deepest in New York City and the counties around it.

Permits on file per county. Each links to its latest permits.

Need an area we don’t cover yet?

We add towns and counties every month. Tell us where you sell.

Ask about your area
Questions

Frequently asked

Yes, by address or by location. Every permit has the street address and town, and 93% are geocoded, so you can match on the address or on map coordinates.

Most permits on file were issued in 2025 or later, so use it as a feed of what changes from here on: each pull adds the new permits to what you keep.

Roof replacements, electrical service and panel upgrades, boilers and water heaters, generators, pools, solar, additions, demolitions and new construction. Each permit is tagged by trade and carries the description of the work as filed.

Yes. Permits on commercial and multi-family property come in the same feed, including changes of use and tenant fit-outs, and new restaurants, bars and cafés are a dataset of their own.

We check most feeds every day, and many records arrive the same day they're filed. Some towns only publish weekly or monthly; their records arrive as soon as they post.

Plans start at $199 a month. Tell us your use case and market, and we'll send a sample and a quote.

Other industries

All industries →

Get a sample for your market.

Tell us what you sell and where. We’ll send recent records from your area so you can see the fields before you buy.

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Or write to [email protected].