Flood Insurance? Earthquake Insurance?

[growing_older]

Flood insurance was not required and I'm on a hill over a major metropolitan area. If my house floods, a big city will be under 100 feet of water. Short of tectonic shift, that isn't happening.

Curiously, earthquake insurance is also not required, even though I'm in an earthquake area. I do have that, although it is expensive and carries a big deductible. In the last big quake I had damage but well under the policy deductible. But FEMA came through and paid for everything up to half my deductible, so perhaps I didn't need the earthquake insurance anyway. If I had a big mortgage maybe I could walk away from a total loss and stick it to the bank, but my equity is large enough I want the insurance to protect it.

[Scuba]

If I lived in an area that flooded even occasionally, I would definitely carry flood insurance. Been through a few hurricanes and people who didn't have it wished they did. It is pretty inexpensive.

I live in CA now and I think whether you carry EQ insurance depends partly on your equity. If you are carrying a big mortgage and you're not likely to want to or be able to cover the deductible, no reason to have it. In our case we have about 75% equity in our home so we do carry it despite the cost and high deductible. If the big one comes and we have a lot of damage, it will be worth it. In the meantime it gives us peace of mind.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

[wrigley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by meierlde I just checked floodsmart.gov and the premium for 250 k of dwelling and 100k of contents is 474 a year if you have a basement and 424 if you do not and live in B,C,X areas. Note that you can also locate an agent on the web site some 80 companies act as agent for the federal government.

Yep.......$424 a year is what I pay here in North Florida. I DO NOT live in a flood zone but some 5ish years ago we had a few tropical storms in a row that dumped massive amounts of rain. The standing water in my back yard was nearly up to my knees and my screened in porch was filled with water and on the brink of going into my house. I've had flood insurance since then for my piece of mind!

Mike

[simple girl]

Where we currently live in AL, no flood insurance.

Moving to flood zone "X" in FL. Insurance not required, but no way would I go without it. Cost was about $475 to insure a $235K property. Purchased through our insurance broker (federal plan). Note they have a 30 day waiting period, so I was sure to purchase it ASAP (before hurricane season started!)

[photoguy]

In CA and have earthquake insurance through the CEA. CEA has changed the options available and now you can get deductibles as low as 5%.

When searching for earthquake insurance, I found it very difficult to assess risk in terms of both earthquake probability and damage to structure. I found very little advice other than generic information like X construction method is good/bad etc.

In the end, I assumed that CEA premiums were more or less linearly proportional to risk. I'm not sure if this is true, or if they charge more in low risk areas to subsidize high risk (I hope not).

[sailor]

Our property was in A zone, flood insurance required, little over $2k per year for first $250k of federal coverage (does not include basements, outbuilding, etc).
We surveyed the property to get rid of flood insurance mandate (it's called Letter of Map Amendment a.k.a. LOMA ), as our house is at least 20 ft above the water level.

Survived one "flood" so far, it took some of my firewood and dumped 12 inches of sand in my back yard. Insurance would not cover it.
DW was not amused, but kids had a blast - we were building sand castles for almost two years before the grass started to grow through it.
It also cut down my mowing time

I might have kept the flood insurance, if the chance of flooding was higher (the house is way above 1000 year flood line)

[devans0]

I lived in a house that was close to the 1000 year plain, but in the 500 year plain. A series of torrential rains over a week caused a flood to the ceilings in 2008. We didn't have flood insurance and had a very rough following two years to rebuild. The area was in decline as an aftermath of the flood and we moved two years ago. We now live on the overlook of the highest altitude hill in our county.

I believe that climate change has caused a shift in weather weirding events. Flooding and wind damage has and will continue to become more common, increasing the odds. I have increased insurance for wind, but did forego flood insurance, given our new floodproof locale.

Floods are the most likely event to destroy homes, at least according to FEMA. I would err on the side of caution for flood insurance.

Earthquakes are unheard of in my area. I will look at this again, though.

[Sarah in SC]

Our old house, on the beach, had to have flood insurance, regular homeowner's and the special gov't wind and hail policy. It was expensive, and on a house built in 1932, covered only in cases of pretty much wipeout. Never had to use it.

We now live in a "B" zone, which is not generally considered to be a flood risk. We only carry regular HO3 policy, with a higher deductible for the wind and hail. No flood insurance. Our house is up 20 feet high on concrete piers. If we get water in the house, the whole island is waaaay underwater!

[dallas27]

Unless I can adversely select insurance, i try to buy the minimum required by law and self insure with my savings.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

[Big_Hitter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scuba If I lived in an area that flooded even occasionally, I would definitely carry flood insurance. Been through a few hurricanes and people who didn't have it wished they did. It is pretty inexpensive.

Flood ins was chump change when I had it

[Ronstar]

We're in a zone X, although we live on a lake. The lake upstream of ours, of which ours is tributary, is Zone AE with a base flood elevation of 542 and normal water elevation of 538. Our lake is at 534, connected to the upper lake by a 6' diameter culvert. One would think that our lake would be in a SFHA, but is not per FEMA. In any case, our walkout basement is at 547 so our lowest building opening is 5' higher than the neighboring lake's BFE anyway. So we're ok as flooding is concerned. Should be ok from earthquakes, although we've had a few small tremors.

[akck]

No flood insurance required, but have had hydrostatic pressure force water through our basement floor. The first time was during a 100 year flood event. We figured it would happen again for a long time. The second time was after a snowfall followed by a heavy rain. I also attribute it to the city diverting more water to the creek behind our house to improve fish habitat. The problem was they started at the beginning of the creek and the next road crossing had 2 - 24" culverts that were unable to take the extra flow.

When we checked about flood insurance, they said our basement wouldn't be covered as it is below grade (would be covered if it was a daylight basement). Also, any coverage would start about 2' above the floor, a highly unlikely scenario. We ended up putting in a sump pump to keep the water pressure below our floor down and the city replaced the culverts downstream with a bigger opening.