We've had a couple small quakes here lately, and my wife is pretty rattled (pun intended). She asked me to look into earthquake insurance, so I thought I'd ask here first. Is there anything about EQ insurance I should know while shopping around?

I have no idea but living here on the Wasatch front I am curious as well. Hopefully others may have an idea. I look forward to hearing what you find out.

Earthquakes are rare here, but I have it nevertheless. I don’t believe there are many places in the U.S. where they can’t occur.
Without looking it up I don’t recall the exact wording, but my policy specifically excludes damage to nonstructural masonry like decorative rocks or bricks cemented to an outside wooden wall.

We have it as a rider through Bear River. As I recall, it has a 10% deductible. You should shop around and get quotes. I have been told some homeowners insurance carriers do not offer it anypmore. It is like flood insurance, you do not want to pay for it until you really need it. In getting a quote check to see if there is an initial dead time when they will not cover.

We have it as well, yes earthquakes are rare in NC but for less than $100 per year why not, you never know.

We have it through State Farm being here in Missouri and overdue for a big New Madrid quake. It's inexpensive, but does have a high deductible.

Usually the deductible is really high like your house needs to be significantly damaged before you would make a claim. Being in ground zero here in the SF bay area, it’s a concern to me. I bought as far away from known faults as a could.

In California, your lender can not require it on a residence not sure about rest of the country.

When we lived in the PNW it was cost prohibitive, like doubled the cost of our policy. We passed with the logic that a small quake wouldn't likely do enough damage to significantly exceed to high deductible and if the big one hit we would end up in the FEMA line with everyone else. Neither came to fruition in the 10 years we owned a home there.

You might want to check your homeowner's insurance. As I recall, in CA earthquakes are not covered. Insurance is separate (about $25 for a $500K home). Mine is purchased through my homeowner's insurance (USAA).

We have it in the Seattle area and I think it's pretty expensive.

What I'm afraid of is being responsible and paying for it, then if there is a big earthquake, FEMA and the government will just pay everybody out anyway. Didn't they do that after Katrina and some other natural disasters?

Since I am within the area of risk for new madrid fault - I have earthquake insurance with USAA. It was very cheap. Changed a few small things on my car insurance policy and it basically evened out cost-wise.

I remember talking with them about rebuilding costs vs value of the house and I'm insured for enough to rebuild I think. It did have a decent chunk for deductible though...

In the high-incident areas I'd be worried about the insurance companies' ability to pay in the event the big one hits. Might not matter in the middle of nowhere with sparse populations. But if a major city in CA gets wiped out, FEMA won't be able to handle it and insurance companies will go out of business very fast.

I had earthquake insurance rider on my Log home in Missouri. I had well over $15,000 in rock work.

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Originally posted by Rick Lee:
In the high-incident areas I'd be worried about the insurance companies' ability to pay in the event the big one hits. Might not matter in the middle of nowhere with sparse populations. But if a major city in CA gets wiped out, FEMA won't be able to handle it and insurance companies will go out of business very fast.

It's no different than being on the Golf but instead of water, it's rocks.

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Originally posted by deepocean:

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:

It's no different than being on the Golf but instead of water, it's rocks.

Do you like Bear River? I called them this morning and they are slightly cheaper than Liberty Mutual, with slightly worse coverage. Is Bear River a good company? I've gone by their headquarters a number of times, but I do not know much about them.

I called my insurance agent this morning, and added an earthquake policy to my homeowners policy for about $300/year. It's a 15% deductible, so basically, it's for a catastrophic earthquake.

Deepocean, yeah, I definitely felt the quake this morning. That's what got my wife worried about getting insurance

When i lived in Alaska (most seismically active of the 50 states), I inquired about earthquake insurance. My surprise at the astoundingly high deductible (20%) was only surpassed by the insanely high premium (would pay off the deductible in only a few years). We had hundreds of earthquakes during my 5 years including M6.2 and I had less than $100 damage total. I'm glad I didn't subject myself to the annual wallet raping.

The M7.0 earthquake in 2018 (4 years after I moved away) was hit or miss on causing damage. Most of my friends had at most a few hundred dollars in plates rattle out of the cupboard or stuff fall off walls/shelves. Only outlier is my friend's inlaws had one of the few brick homes in Alaska and much of the brick came off the house plus they had major structural damage. The biggest common denominator on damage vs no damage was whether or not the house/neighborhood was build on fill.

We have it as we are south of New Madrid but will not feel it too much as the fault runs east to west north of our house and the small quakes felt there are not felt here. We have USAA and they are very reasonable

quote:

Originally posted by deepocean:

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:

It's no different than being on the Golf but instead of water, it's rocks.

Do you like Bear River? I called them this morning and they are slightly cheaper than Liberty Mutual, with slightly worse coverage. Is Bear River a good company? I've gone by their headquarters a number of times, but I do not know much about them.

We have had them for 17 years for everything. They are the cheapest we found too based upon their underwriting policies. Many companies won't even bid against them.

When they started fracking earthquakes became a big problem around here. So I bought insurance as its pretty inexpensive. You haven't lived though until you've had a 5.0 quake and F4 tornado in the same day!

Seems to me, anyone with a very low equity position would just walk away from a house too heavily damaged by an earthquake. Then it's the bank's problem. FEMA money isn't free. Well, it might be interest-free, but it's a loan. I don't think a lot of folks could handle having a second mortgage for the same house just thrown at them.