Who buys earthquake insurance?

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ps99472_IHB

ps99472_IHB

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I'm switching my homeowner's to western mutual and they offered an earthquake policy for $168 a year and a $24,300 deductible. Is this a good deal or money down the drain? Or maybe I should depend on FEMA or Arnold?
 
<p>I went through this quandry too....I did end up purchasing the policy, for peace of mind...but if I recall correctly, California EQ Insurance has set aside one account to handle future claims. Once the ceiling has been hit and all the money disbursed, that's it. SO, if you don't get your claim in fast enough, you risk hearing, "Sorry, the money's all gone"....and you don't get shinola. I'd do some research, but would probably buy it again. </p>

<p>BTW, my deductible back then (1999) was only 15K, and I thought THAT was bad.</p>

<p> </p>
 
All insurance is a waste of money if you don't use it, and you never have enough insurance when you need it. That is the nature of insurance. Considering an earthquake has the potential to completely level your house, $15 bucks a month doesn't sound too high to me.
 
remember that an earthquake can also displace you out of your home for quite some time while things are being repaired - I believe (double check this please) that earthquake insurance can help with some of these costs as well. Personally, when I own a home in So. CA I will buy earthquake insurance - I just don't think I would have peace of mind without it - but I also know a lot of people who don't buy it! :) Also, I am pretty sure you can get policies with different deductables - might want to check out all the options with your insurance agent.
 
How does it work for people in attached homes? Wouldn't it be required for everyone? If it happened, you couldn't just build the units for people who had insurance.
 
KD_B, I believe some HOAs have earthquake insurance included with the attached homes. Not all though - so you have to check.
 
I learned from my Northridge homeowner friends, that earthquake insurance is a good thing. After the quake, contractors won't even quote you if you don't have insurance since they had so many other customers wanting quotes. Also don't worry about the high cost of deductible, when there is a disaster the prices go up 3X normal. My friends actually made money during the earthquake since they chose not to fix their repairs until 3 years later, when the prices were normal.



But it is important to have a company that actually pay claims not like some horror stories out of Katrina.
 
just got an instant quote from geovera....came out to be $270 annual premium for coverage of $230,000 and 15% deductible.. ($851 for each dollar)





my first quote of $168 with western mutual was cheaper but for coverage of $162,000 only ($964 for each dollar)





when i increased my coverage with western mutual to $222,000 the premium was $231 ($961 for each dollar)





so you still get the most amount of coverage per dollar with western mutual, at least in my case...
 
Most earhtquake insurance in california is through the CEA, <a href="http://www.earthquakeauthority.com/CEAIndex.aspx">California Earthquake Authority</a>. You can get a quote <a href="http://www.earthquakeauthority.com/CEARateForm.aspx?id=3&pid=3">here</a>.
 
i use western mutual and their quote was far lower than any other i had gotten. i'll admit i have no clue about their track record for paying claims, but given the lower quote and they were the recommended vendor for my builder (calpac), that's why i went with them. at first i thought i would feel more comfortable with a big name insr company until i found out most of them were at a loss trying to understand my property type - detached condo. wm knew exactly what they were dealing with as soon as i told them what tract. in the end i didn't want to have any future claim hassles with my insr company over some misspecification of my home in the paperwork.
 
i live in zip code 92620. I didn't buy it this year, as the cost is about $1500 comparing with my home owner's insurance policy of less than $1100.



I just used the CAH's online quote, and I noticed that 92620 is three times more than the cost in zip code 92603. Does that mean 92620 is three times more likely to have earthquake than 92603?? We are less than two miles away?!
 
the difference in zip codes might depend on the type of soil/rock in that area - I know that I have a friend who's realtor told them they didn't need earthquake insurance because they were on rock instead of sand (or something like that - I am sure that realtor had seismology training right - ha!). Personally, after seeing the devastation by the northridge earthquake I don't think it is that easily predictable. Fillmore which is quite a distance from Northridge was struck very badly while other areas the same distance away had no damage - sometimes you never know where the shock waves will travel.
 
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