Earthquake Insurance

Property insurance policies - for both home and business - are designed to cover a lot of perils, like fire and theft. But property insurance policies are not designed to cover potentially catastrophic events like earthquake and this coverage is specifically excluded from standard policies. Even though people in the U.S. live near fault lines, damaging seismic activity is infrequent and hard to predict. We may experience a devastating earthquake in the U.S. in our lifetimes, or we may escape earthquakes here for generations to come.

Earthquake insurance can be endorsed, or added, to a home insurance or business property insurance policy. Earthquake insurance rates vary with the type of building construction. Wooden structures, because they will flex in a mild earthquake, have lower insurance rates than brick structures.

Earthquake insurance policies usually have higher deductibles - typically 10% to 25% of the building insurance amount - and often separate deductibles will apply for the building structure, building contents, and detached structures, like bulkheads, sheds and garages.

Earthquake insurance rates will vary by location, building structure, and of course, coverage amount and deductible selection. For most of us, rates start in at a few hundred dollars a year, and when you consider that, of the six strongest earthquakes ever recorded, three have struck since 2004, a few hundred dollars a year seems like a small price to pay for peace of mind.