Earthquake Risk

[WanderALot]

Make an informed decision...have a structural engineer/earthquake report done to show what threats are in your area and what the weak points in your home might be, and get costs to do some upgrades.

Hmm, that shoulds like a good idea. My EQ insurance comes up for renewal in May, so maybe I call up a structural guy around here and see what they have to say.

Off the top of my head, a $400 premium sounds pretty cheap so odds are you arent that close to a major threat. If your house was built in the last 15 years or so, it should have the latest building codes applied and not have any major weaknesses.

The house is a track house in Orange County built in 1985. Not exactly synonymous with "well-built".

Yeah, that did seem like a relatively cheap insurance. What makes me nervous is the earthquake insurance in CA is composed of two options. You either go with the quasi-state agency, California Earthquake Authority, or you go with GeoVera. GeoVera seems to have better coverage for the same and they seem to be financially stable. The house is "worth" 600k here, but the policy covers the house for around 180k, so with 180k - 15% would be around 150k. Additionally, I'm not sure how this policy compares with my regular HO for replacement coverage and building code upgrades. On the other hand 150k, while not painless, is definitely something we could self-insure for.

It's just really confusing which is why I feel like I'll get the insurance, since it's relatively cheap, and hope for the best.

 

[laurence]

FWIW, I lived at the epicenter of the Northridge Earthquake, not a 9 mind you, but it felt pretty crazy. I say you could get more bang for your buck getting an automatic gas shut off valve, the homes around me that were lost were due to fire afterwards. A couple other things, like bolting the house to the foundation, are big bang for your buck, too. Also, our house suffered something like 20k in damage, we were on a hill on bedrock, those below us that were built on sandy soil/old riverbeds etc. were written off by insurance companies as total losses. So rather than move away from the area altogether, finding a location within the area with better sub-earth composition might be a better bet.