Do you have earthquake insurance? WTH

We get that notice every year. We haven't purchased it because we live in a one-story house, and though we live between two faults I'm not too worried.

We live in So Cal and this is how we approach earthquake insurance. My husband is a residential structural engineer.

In New Zealand we have a government entity called the Earthquake Commission (EQC) which provides natural disaster insurance for residential homes and land. There is a levy on private insurance policies to collect contributions to the scheme and anyone who has a private insurance policy for their home that includes fire insurance will have automatic natural disaster insurance that will cover damage from earthquakes, landslips and volcanic eruptions among other natural disasters.

The maximum cover though EQC for damage to a residential building and land is now NZ$300,000 + GST for each event and the costs of repair/rebuilding above that cap will be covered by your private insurer.

The scheme was originally set up in 1945 to provide affordable natural disaster insurance to help communities recover from natural disasters following a number of earthquakes and is still going. We've had a lot of major events in the last few years including the Christchurch earthquakes, significant floods etc so the cover provided by EQC is really vital.

We had earthquake insurance, many years ago when it was first offered by the State. We don’t have it anymore. Just not worth it since you have to have major significance damage to get any money.

anniefb , New Zealand for the win, once again! 

The problem with hurricane insurance is that the coverage is for the wind damage. Then, most often the homeowner has to prove the damage was not caused by rising water and the rising water is only covered by flood insurance.

I'm raising a skeptical brow at your insurance company. It sounds like an offer to sell you something disguised as a "we can't cover you without it" letter, shrouded in "legal-toned imperative." Is the NOTICE legally required, or is the COVERAGE?
Maybe the wording isn't clear to me, but I'm giving them the stink eye.

Like iowagirl I'm in tornado country and we pay twice as much for our insurance as my ILs did when they owned their home in Atlanta. When I asked why the kindly insurance agent (USAA) told me the likely hood of them having to replace our roof due to wind damage was a lot higher for us than for them. She was not wrong.

So while we don't have "tornado insurance" we pay more than those who don't live in areas where they're likely to happen.

we have had earthquake insurance for years. in our scheme of things, it is not such a high cost when you think of a. major asset being destroyed. for years, our house was our one big owned thing.. so it has been worth the peace of mind. if you buy it, you can buy different levels of coverage such as living expenses, etc.

I can see an earthquake fault from my house.

It came as part of my homeowner's policy but it's laughable. I think it's a $25,000 deductible and doesn't really cover anything. I don't live in an area which really experiences earthquakes so it's nothing I'm worried about. My house is much more likely to burn down which is why everyone that lives in my area struggles to find insurance.

I need to call USAA about my earthquake coverage. I do carry it, because we’re right by the Hayward fault here, although we’re on pretty solid ground, too.

BUT I’m not paying that much for it. So I’m concerned about the coverage. Your offer sounds like a nightmare. I thought I had much better coverage than that, but admittedly, I don’t pay much attention to notices, updates, etc.

I don't know if we do or not.

We sometimes get rain/wind from hurricanes but aren't a direct hit. There was one hurricane in 2004 that dumped a ton of water on us. Same in 2010.

Forgot which one that headed our way in 2020 but we had hurricane warnings, etc in Arkansas. It was expected to get so bad schools closed.

I live in So Cal and I do not have earthquake insurance. It’s too expensive and it won’t rebuild my house anyways. I’m just not that concerned that an earthquake is going to level my house. 

California here and we no longer have it. Financially it doesn't make sense. My mom lived a few miles from the Northridge quake and it took years to get their insurance to fix anything because she had to fight them every step. We live farther from any fault lines and it's unlikely our home would be raised so it makes more sense to save the money (we had it for a few years after the earthquake and it was almost $3000/per year, if we'd kept it that would have been over $65,000 in premiums and that's IF they didn't raise the rates which wasn't likely).