Earthquake Preparedness

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john94549
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Earthquake Preparedness

Post by john94549 »

Napa served as a wake-up. It dawned on me, as folks began to be interviewed, that for many folks in the Bay Area (especially those born post Loma Prieta), this might have been their first (semi) "big one".

Time to take stock. Are your slippers under the bed, the "go bag" ready, mirrors and other hazards bolted to studs, emergency food and water on hand, a hand-operated generator for powering your phone. Flashlights, anyone? If you smell gas, would you be able to turn it off?

And, for those of us who are homeowners, earthquake insurance? Whether, financially, it makes sense is an intensely personal decision. But if you do not have it, was it your conscious decision not to, or just something you never got around to.
dgdevil
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dgdevil »

I bought some Quakehold! straps for bookcases on Amazon today. That company must be doing a roaring trade right now.

Go bag - yes, though I keep stealing money from it.

The one thing we don't have - and people don't seem to recommend it - is a spare can of gas.

I'm surprised that vineyards seemed unprepared for this, judging by all the broken barrels and bottles. A lot of brick buildings got hammered too.
Mudpuppy
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Mudpuppy »

People think of the obvious like straping down bookcases or getting food/water supplies handy after a big quake. I like to think of the less obvious, like not locating my bed underneath a massive picture window in the bedroom, not having pictures hanging above the bed, and not having things on the bed-side of the dresser. Call me crazy, but I don't like the thought of things falling on me or breaking upon me as I sleep.

The room is a little more spartan that way, but on a day-to-day basis it also prevents cat-related sleeping "fun" like "knock things off the dresser onto the human's head" when the cats decide breakfast needs to be served at 6am. The cats still have plenty of annoyances left in the "can't you tell I'm staarrvving human?" arsenal, but ones that don't leave minor concussions in their wake.

And yes, I have slippers and a flashlight next to the bed, which has turned out to be handy for far more than earthquakes. I also have an emergency light plugged into a far wall that turns on automatically when the power goes out.

I'll admit I don't have an emergency bag/trash can of food and water. I have enough cold eats and "easy to heat on a camping stove" eats in the pantry. There's always a couple of gallons of liquids (ranging from water to rice milk to broth) in the fridge and/or pantry. The emergency radio is stored in the pantry as well. If the pantry gets crushed, I'll be in a spot of trouble, but if the quake is bad enough to affect the pantry, it would also likely cut off access to an emergency bag/trash can as well.

I do have earthquake insurance. In this area of California, it is insanely cheap compared to the Bay Area or LA area. I don't know why, as our quake risk is just as bad (there are multiple active fault lines nearby and a history of bad quakes), but I'm not complaining too loudly. The earthquake insurance is cheaper than my homeowner's insurance.

Edit: One more thing people don't think about: Don't stand in the doorway during a quake. Don't stand anywhere (I saw videos of people just standing in a hallway during this quake). Get yourself underneath a sturdy table, bed, desk, whatever. Stuff falling on your head is a very common way of getting injured in a quake.
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Watty
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Watty »

this might have been their first (semi) "big one".
Not even close.

Todays earthquake was 6.1 the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake was around 7.8, which calculates out to having about 355 times as much energy released and the eventual "big one" could be larger than that.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics ... bigger.php
ahmadcpa
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by ahmadcpa »

Earthquake Insurance quote in California

http://www.earthquakeauthority.com/CEAR ... id=3&pid=3
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john94549
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by john94549 »

Watty, kindly read the entire sentence. For those of a tender age (born post Loma Prieta), this might have been their first (semi) big one. My post was so directed. I was not suggesting this was a (or "the") biggee.
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in_reality
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by in_reality »

What about $$$?
What about a bicycle?

If you are in a devastated area, you might want to get out to where things are working (water, electricity, transportation). That's our plan anyway.

So yeah I do need to fill the air in the tires. Really want some airless ones...
ahmadcpa
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by ahmadcpa »

For those pre Loma Prieta bay area residents, do you recall if real estate crashed or it had no impact on the market?
letsgobobby
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by letsgobobby »

I live in Washington and have earthquake insurance. It boggles my mind that so many Californians don't have it, but I guess it is much more expensive there? And I guess they know something I don't, as far as who will ultimately foot the bill for damages and repairs.
dgdevil
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dgdevil »

letsgobobby wrote:I live in Washington and have earthquake insurance.
I'm impressed. Is this common in the Pacific Northwest?
letsgobobby wrote:It boggles my mind that so many Californians don't have it, but I guess it is much more expensive there?
Yes, very uneconomical.
Bungo
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Bungo »

Didn't feel anything in San Jose, and in fact I learned about the quake only when relatives thousands of miles away called early this morning.

My readiness is maybe 50% of what it should be. I have some stuff in the garage: gallons of water, canned food, camping stove and fuel, flashlights and other battery powered lamps. I know where the gas shutoff valve is. I'm bad about bolting things to walls, so bookshelves and TVs may topple. But there's nothing heavy and tall within falling distance of my bed. Water heater is strapped to the wall of course. Clothes including shoes within a few feet of the bed. No hand powered generator - that's a good idea.

Earthquake insurance: absolutely. It may not be the greatest coverage in the world, but if my house becomes scrap, then it could be the difference between a financial setback versus financial catastrophe (i.e. retire a year or two later than planned versus possibly never being able to retire). And it's not THAT expensive: ~$1500/year in my case, only slightly more than my homeowner's policy.
Ron Ronnerson
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Ron Ronnerson »

I keep toiletries, sneakers, and extra clothes in my car in case I'm unable to get home due to road problems caused by an earthquake. At home, we've got the basic supplies to survive for a bit. Our china cabinet is bolted to the wall but we need to do the same to our bookcases.

I often hear stats in the news like there is an x% chance of a big earthquake in the Bay Area during the next ___ number of years. The Bay Area is big, though, and all locations are not likely to experience major damage. For example, there was a relatively big earthquake last night in the area yet no damage to most parts of the Bay Area. It would be helpful to know what the chances are that a particular home would experience earthquake damage in the next however many years. I know that the location of the home would play an important factor but even some kind of "average" risk to a Bay Area home picked randomly would be handy in figuring out if earthquake insurance makes sense.

In any case, these earthquakes are quite something. I've lived in CA for a couple of decades now but not sure that I'll ever get used to them.
letsgobobby
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by letsgobobby »

dgdevil wrote:
letsgobobby wrote:I live in Washington and have earthquake insurance.
I'm impressed. Is this common in the Pacific Northwest?
letsgobobby wrote:It boggles my mind that so many Californians don't have it, but I guess it is much more expensive there?
Yes, very uneconomical.
How uneconomical? My policy has (I think) a 30% deductible: it's only for a major loss. But such a loss would have a substantial impact on my finances and so I insure it, and the cost is almost unimportant. I think I pay $500 or so on top of a $1200 homeowner's policy. This is for a home worth ~$600k.
dgdevil
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dgdevil »

letsgobobby wrote:
dgdevil wrote:
letsgobobby wrote:I live in Washington and have earthquake insurance.
I'm impressed. Is this common in the Pacific Northwest?
letsgobobby wrote:It boggles my mind that so many Californians don't have it, but I guess it is much more expensive there?
Yes, very uneconomical.
How uneconomical? My policy has (I think) a 30% deductible: it's only for a major loss. But such a loss would have a substantial impact on my finances and so I insure it, and the cost is almost unimportant. I think I pay $500 or so on top of a $1200 homeowner's policy. This is for a home worth ~$600k.
Don't have the paperwork with me. For about a decade, I was with Geovera, which had a better deal than California Earthquake Authority (the default option here). I think it was something like a $50,000 deductible, and an annual premium of about $1,000 - but I could be wrong. This is for a home worth ~ $1m, but that's mostly its hillside location. And if the quake is that bad, I'll be somewhere down in the canyon crushed by the rubble. My agent said he doesn't have it for his house.
Valuethinker
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Valuethinker »

ahmadcpa wrote:For those pre Loma Prieta bay area residents, do you recall if real estate crashed or it had no impact on the market?
Foreign resident. The picture is probably confused by the property slump that was going on in CA at the time?

In most natural disasters of which I am aware, the impact on property markets is transitory *unless* there is a permanent threat. I am thinking of the latter something like Sandy, where there is the possibility of recurring flooding (say if there is coastal erosion going on, and it's clear the coast is moving closer to the home-- that's the case in eastern England, for example).

My *guess* is the property market will shrug this off *except* of course for structural damage, which will influence the price of the homes so affected.
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

dgdevil wrote: I'm surprised that vineyards seemed unprepared for this, judging by all the broken barrels and bottles. A lot of brick buildings got hammered too.
Yes, it's easy to say, You should have done that, but zillions of bottles worth a lot apiece, and no provision for an earthquake - what were they thinking?
madbrain
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by madbrain »

Bungo wrote:Didn't feel anything in San Jose, and in fact I learned about the quake only when relatives thousands of miles away called early this morning.
I was awake at the time already and reading a magazine, and felt it strongly in the East San Jose hills.

One of my cats was on the table and barely blinked, probably because I was near her and it must have been comforting.

In the last 5.6 quake we had a few years back, both cats freaked out.

This one only lasted about 10 seconds but it sure was something.

My husband was sound asleep and it did not wake him up.
madbrain
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by madbrain »

letsgobobby wrote: How uneconomical? My policy has (I think) a 30% deductible: it's only for a major loss. But such a loss would have a substantial impact on my finances and so I insure it, and the cost is almost unimportant. I think I pay $500 or so on top of a $1200 homeowner's policy. This is for a home worth ~$600k.
My CEA quote is $14k/year for a home rebuilding cost of $1.8M. A home which I paid $800k for 4 years ago.
That CEA quote is bigger than my annual property taxes, as well as the amount of interest I currently pay on the mortgage annually, but of course the CEA premium is not deductible.
And the 15% deductible is really a killer when you get to such high numbers.

I have no choice but to forego the earthquake insurance. If I wanted to have it, I would need to live in a different kind of home or in a different area.
letsgobobby
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by letsgobobby »

I think a $1.8 million loss will be a much bigger killer when it comes. People are just gambling I think but it wouldn't be kosher per forum policy to say what they might be gambling on.
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Epsilon Delta
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Epsilon Delta »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:
dgdevil wrote: I'm surprised that vineyards seemed unprepared for this, judging by all the broken barrels and bottles. A lot of brick buildings got hammered too.
Yes, it's easy to say, You should have done that, but zillions of bottles worth a lot apiece, and no provision for an earthquake - what were they thinking?
Are you going by the TV pictures or are there reports of large amounts of wine being lost? Even if a vineyard takes precautions there will always be a few bottles in processing, on display, or just unlucky that will be damaged even if 99% are safely packed away. Reporters are good at finding and framing a picture of "devastation" even when it's really a tiny minority. I've seen pictures of my street that looked like a disaster area when in reality most of us experienced a little inconvenience and a couple suffered significant but by no means overwhelming losses.
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Sheepdog
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Sheepdog »

I live in Indiana on the Wabash Valley Fault which connects to the larger New Madrid Fault which had a 7.2 earthquake in 1811. It rang the bells in Boston. This link shows the location of the fault: http://showme.net/~fkeller/quake/images ... urecom.jpg I have earthquake insurance, 10% deductible, the cost of which is 15% of the total homeowners insurance bill, however, it does not cover the brick veneer!. Some insurance companies will not quote earthquake insurance here. 25 years ago it was reported widely that there was a 50%+ chance to have a major 6.0 or higher within 50 years.
Outside of the insurance, I have no other preparation.
Last edited by Sheepdog on Mon Aug 25, 2014 9:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered you will never grow. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
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Ged
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Ged »

john94549 wrote:their first (semi) "big one".
My wife grew up in Chile. This is what they call the 'big one'.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... _05_22.php
Pizzasteve510
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Pizzasteve510 »

Ron Ronnerson wrote:I keep toiletries, sneakers, and extra clothes in my car in case I'm unable to get home due to road problems caused by an earthquake. At home, we've got the basic supplies to survive for a bit. Our china cabinet is bolted to the wall but we need to do the same to our bookcases.

I often hear stats in the news like there is an x% chance of a big earthquake in the Bay Area during the next ___ number of years. The Bay Area is big, though, and all locations are not likely to experience major damage. For example, there was a relatively big earthquake last night in the area yet no damage to most parts of the Bay Area. It would be helpful to know what the chances are that a particular home would experience earthquake damage in the next however many years. I know that the location of the home would play an important factor but even some kind of "average" risk to a Bay Area home picked randomly would be handy in figuring out if earthquake insurance makes sense.

In any case, these earthquakes are quite something. I've lived in CA for a couple of decades now but not sure that I'll ever get used to them.
+1
Last edited by Pizzasteve510 on Fri Sep 19, 2014 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mudpuppy
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Mudpuppy »

Epsilon Delta wrote:
dolphinsaremammals wrote:
dgdevil wrote: I'm surprised that vineyards seemed unprepared for this, judging by all the broken barrels and bottles. A lot of brick buildings got hammered too.
Yes, it's easy to say, You should have done that, but zillions of bottles worth a lot apiece, and no provision for an earthquake - what were they thinking?
Are you going by the TV pictures or are there reports of large amounts of wine being lost? Even if a vineyard takes precautions there will always be a few bottles in processing, on display, or just unlucky that will be damaged even if 99% are safely packed away. Reporters are good at finding and framing a picture of "devastation" even when it's really a tiny minority. I've seen pictures of my street that looked like a disaster area when in reality most of us experienced a little inconvenience and a couple suffered significant but by no means overwhelming losses.
Quite a bit of the wine damage they're showing on the news is private wine cellars and winery display areas with the bottles stored in open-faced wine racks. Of course, a lot of those bottles came tumbling out and onto the floor.
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Mudpuppy »

letsgobobby wrote:I live in Washington and have earthquake insurance. It boggles my mind that so many Californians don't have it, but I guess it is much more expensive there? And I guess they know something I don't, as far as who will ultimately foot the bill for damages and repairs.
The CA Earthquake Authority (CEA) costs are regional, e.g. what zone you are in, much like flood insurance has zones with different premiums. You can also choose between a 10% or 15% deductible, and a few other coverage limits, which of course affects the premiums. But back to the zones. If I were to take my exact same home, with all of the same insurance options, and transplant it to the Bay Area, I would see about a 7x increase in earthquake insurance premiums.

So when people complain about the expense of earthquake insurance, they are usually in one of these high-cost zones. I don't think the costs are directly tied to risk, as I don't think my area has 1/7th the risk of the Bay Area for quakes, but perhaps the costs are tied towards the overall estimated loss in the region.
deci02
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by deci02 »

Ron Ronnerson wrote:I often hear stats in the news like there is an x% chance of a big earthquake in the Bay Area during the next ___ number of years. The Bay Area is big, though, and all locations are not likely to experience major damage. For example, there was a relatively big earthquake last night in the area yet no damage to most parts of the Bay Area. It would be helpful to know what the chances are that a particular home would experience earthquake damage in the next however many years. I know that the location of the home would play an important factor but even some kind of "average" risk to a Bay Area home picked randomly would be handy in figuring out if earthquake insurance makes sense.
Fate is capricious but here’s a hazard map. Can zoom to neighborhood detail. “Shaking/1 sec” a pertinent overlay. Play around with zip codes for comparable buildings with same dwelling coverage amounts at CEA site and will likely find hazard level coincides with premium rates.

http://myplan.calema.ca.gov/

http://www.earthquakeauthority.com/CEAR ... .aspx?id=3
dgdevil
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dgdevil »

Epsilon Delta wrote:
dolphinsaremammals wrote:
dgdevil wrote: I'm surprised that vineyards seemed unprepared for this, judging by all the broken barrels and bottles. A lot of brick buildings got hammered too.
Yes, it's easy to say, You should have done that, but zillions of bottles worth a lot apiece, and no provision for an earthquake - what were they thinking?
Are you going by the TV pictures or are there reports of large amounts of wine being lost? Even if a vineyard takes precautions there will always be a few bottles in processing, on display, or just unlucky that will be damaged even if 99% are safely packed away. Reporters are good at finding and framing a picture of "devastation" even when it's really a tiny minority.
From WSJ:

" ... [V]intners reported that barrels, tanks and other infrastructure had been damaged, with extensive amounts of wine reported spilled on the ground."

"Anecdotal evidence suggested some of the hardest hit areas were barrel rooms in Napa and Sonoma counties. At Sonoma-based La Chertosa Wines, 48 barrels of its 2013 vintage Zinfandel fell to the floor of a warehouse near the city of Napa with some leaking out ..."

http://online.wsj.com/articles/napa-and ... 1408923876
Mudpuppy wrote:The CA Earthquake Authority (CEA) costs are regional, e.g. what zone you are in
They need to rethink this. The Napa quake and the recent "Shamrock Shake" in L.A. were on low-risk fault lines, meaning unnecessary and costly subsidization.
fareastwarriors
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by fareastwarriors »

Besides GeoVera Insurance Company and California Earthquake Authority, are there other companies out there in Cali doing earthquake insurance? I think it's time to shop around again and reassess the economics...
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

Epsilon Delta wrote:
dolphinsaremammals wrote:
dgdevil wrote: I'm surprised that vineyards seemed unprepared for this, judging by all the broken barrels and bottles. A lot of brick buildings got hammered too.
Yes, it's easy to say, You should have done that, but zillions of bottles worth a lot apiece, and no provision for an earthquake - what were they thinking?
Are you going by the TV pictures or are there reports of large amounts of wine being lost? Even if a vineyard takes precautions there will always be a few bottles in processing, on display, or just unlucky that will be damaged even if 99% are safely packed away. Reporters are good at finding and framing a picture of "devastation" even when it's really a tiny minority. I've seen pictures of my street that looked like a disaster area when in reality most of us experienced a little inconvenience and a couple suffered significant but by no means overwhelming losses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/us/st ... ornia.html
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

Pizzasteve510 wrote: Our 1928 built home survived the last one without a crack, is bolted to foundation, etc.
My 1920s house made it through Loma Prieta with just a little bowing of a wall of a detached garage. I had had the house bolted to the foundation and pier posts improved a decade or two before and those whatcamacallit cross-bracing things added to the vertical wood parts of the foundation.
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john94549
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by john94549 »

As I suggested in my initial post in this thread, whether (or not) to purchase earthquake insurance is a very personal decision. We have it, others do not. At minimum, it should at least be considered. Crunch the numbers, as it were.

The CEA numbers are dismal, at best. Ideally, lenders should require (just as they do fire), the risk pool would expand, and rates would come down. Why lenders ignore earthquake is beyond me.
madbrain
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by madbrain »

letsgobobby wrote:I think a $1.8 million loss will be a much bigger killer when it comes. People are just gambling I think but it wouldn't be kosher per forum policy to say what they might be gambling on.
It's easy to say, but the cost of the premium is so unaffordable that there is no just way we could afford it given the premium I cited.
I really wish I could insure it, and if it was $1500 - $3000 annually, I might be able to find that annually, but at $14K, it is impossible.

If the quake is such a killer that the house is a total loss, we might be dead anyway, earthquake insurance or not. And we have no heirs to leave the property to.

In any case, $1.8 million is the rebuilding cost. It is higher than the market value of the house, in my estimate.
The previous owners chose to build it in a very expensive way in a neighborhood that doesn't support home prices as high as the rest of the bay area. We purchased it as a foreclosure for $800k. The previous owners were trying to short sell it for $1.6 million before they got foreclosed. That may be about the amount that they spent on building property.

I don't think it's worth more than $1.4M on the market today, though. The rebuilding cost would still be higher than market value. That means I don't really have $1.8 million to lose but $1.4M, and the land is supposed to have some value, maybe $150-$300k if it was an empty lot, though obviously there would be demolition costs to deduct.

If the house was a total loss in the earthquake and we survived, one option would be to demolish it and build a more modest home on it. Or move.
Hopefully that never happens. But I think it's a gamble that a lot of Californians are forced to make given the lack of affordable earthquake insurance options.
madbrain
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by madbrain »

john94549 wrote:As I suggested in my initial post in this thread, whether (or not) to purchase earthquake insurance is a very personal decision. We have it, others do not. At minimum, it should at least be considered. Crunch the numbers, as it were.

The CEA numbers are dismal, at best. Ideally, lenders should require (just as they do fire), the risk pool would expand, and rates would come down. Why lenders ignore earthquake is beyond me.
If it was just one lender insisting on earthquake insurance, they would lose all of their business. All the lenders would need to agree to this at the same time. This is unlikely to happen for the entire state of California.

The main reason we are not insured for earthquake is because the premiums are so unaffordable.
If there were some more affordable premium options, even with more limited benefits, we might consider them. At the current rates, it's just a joke.
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john94549
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by john94549 »

Madbrain, how CEA underwrites is and shall always be a mystery. Why somebody parked close to the San Andreas is a bigger risk than somebody atop the Calaveras, go figure. That said, I am still puzzled why each and every mortgage lender mandates fire insurance, yet seems oblivious to earthquake.

If one takes a deep breath, looks at the deductibles for fire policies, then the deductibles for earthquake policies, then compares the rates for same for the same property, the only logical explanation is the risk pool. Stated another way, rich folks in Los Altos Hills and Orinda buy earthquake insurance. Rich folks in Vacaville don't.
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Watty
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Watty »

Figuring out how you might rebuild after a major disaster is tricky even if you have good insurance.

In addition to your house, the place where you work could have damage and at least temporarily be closed so you might not have any income from a job which could make it hard to afford to rebuild.

Your house might not fit to live in so you would have to also find a temporarily place to live while you are still making your normal mortgage payment too.

A real problem that you also need to consider is that you might not be able to find a contractor to work on repairing your house since there would be so much demand for them. Someone I know has relatives in the area where hurricane Andrew hit and their roof was badly damaged. They had insurance that covered the damage and they could have afforded the repair anyway, it took them several years with a blue tarp on their roof for several years before they could get a contractor to fix it.
madbrain
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by madbrain »

john94549 wrote:Stated another way, rich folks in Los Altos Hills and Orinda buy earthquake insurance.
I'm not sure that the even the rich in Los Altos Hills buy it.
Rich folks in Vacaville don't.
The level of wealth in Vacaville is also different.
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by madbrain »

Watty wrote:Figuring out how you might rebuild after a major disaster is tricky even if you have good insurance.

In addition to your house, the place where you work could have damage and at least temporarily be closed so you might not have any income from a job which could make it hard to afford to rebuild.

Your house might not fit to live in so you would have to also find a temporarily place to live while you are still making your normal mortgage payment too.

A real problem that you also need to consider is that you might not be able to find a contractor to work on repairing your house since there would be so much demand for them. Someone I know has relatives in the area where hurricane Andrew hit and their roof was badly damaged. They had insurance that covered the damage and they could have afforded the repair anyway, it took them several years with a blue tarp on their roof for several years before they could get a contractor to fix it.
The CEA is supposed to cover at least part of your housing expenses while your home is uninhabitable. I'm not sure how much and what the limits are.

You can't really insure against the risk of your employer closing down due to earthquake. One would hope that both your home and place of employment aren't badly hit simultaneously.
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Epsilon Delta
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Epsilon Delta »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:
dgdevil wrote: I'm surprised that vineyards seemed unprepared for this, judging by all the broken barrels and bottles. A lot of brick buildings got hammered too.
Yes, it's easy to say, You should have done that, but zillions of bottles worth a lot apiece, and no provision for an earthquake - what were they thinking?
And dgdevil points to the WSJ.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/napa-and ... 1408923876
WSJ, [b]emphasis[/b] mine wrote: ...and while the extent of damage remained unclear, vintners reported that barrels, tanks and other infrastructure had been damaged, with extensive amounts of wine reported spilled on the ground."

"Anecdotal evidence suggested some of the hardest hit areas were barrel rooms in Napa and Sonoma counties. At Sonoma-based La Chertosa Wines, 48 barrels of its 2013 vintage Zinfandel fell to the floor of a warehouse near the city of Napa with some leaking out ..."
So we don't actually have any reports of wide spread damage, just anecdotal evidence. I don't fault the Journalists, they report what they have and made it clear they don't have much.

I also don't want to minimize any loss to any vintners. Even if the overall loss is small, losses to a winery may be bad. But this does not provide any evidence that there was wide spread damage, let alone that there was no provision for an earthquake.

Any loss was, thankfully, purely economic. There are many actions that could have been take, they could have hardened the physical plant, or used insurance, or diversified and self insured, or some combination. We have no idea if any of these steps were taken. Even to address the first point we'd need to know 48 barrels out of how many? How many of the 2014 Zinfandel? How much wine was lost, and not just rolled around in a barrel? How many barrels in that cellar? that vineyard? cellars owned by that vintner? barrels in Napa Valley cellars built and operated to the same standard?

Of course some of the numerators will be larger than 48 barrels, but without a denominator we can't say if the construction was highly effective or a complete flop. We do know that there was no loss of life so either we were lucky or the physical plant passed at least that most basic of tests.
Ron Ronnerson
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by Ron Ronnerson »

deci02 wrote:
Ron Ronnerson wrote:I often hear stats in the news like there is an x% chance of a big earthquake in the Bay Area during the next ___ number of years. The Bay Area is big, though, and all locations are not likely to experience major damage. For example, there was a relatively big earthquake last night in the area yet no damage to most parts of the Bay Area. It would be helpful to know what the chances are that a particular home would experience earthquake damage in the next however many years. I know that the location of the home would play an important factor but even some kind of "average" risk to a Bay Area home picked randomly would be handy in figuring out if earthquake insurance makes sense.
Fate is capricious but here’s a hazard map. Can zoom to neighborhood detail. “Shaking/1 sec” a pertinent overlay. Play around with zip codes for comparable buildings with same dwelling coverage amounts at CEA site and will likely find hazard level coincides with premium rates.

http://myplan.calema.ca.gov/

http://www.earthquakeauthority.com/CEAR ... .aspx?id=3
Those links were fun to play around with. Thanks for scaring the bejesus outta me. I'd go hide under my bed but there is apparently a decent chance the ground would simply open wide and swallow me whole.
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

Ron Ronnerson wrote: Those links were fun to play around with. Thanks for scaring the bejesus outta me. I'd go hide under my bed but there is apparently a decent chance the ground would simply open wide and swallow me whole.
I remember being told by some officious person that it doesn't do that in earthquakes, but, indeed, it can. I'd worry a lot more about sinkholes, though, than that happening in an earthquake.
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snackdog
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Re: Earthquake Preparedness

Post by snackdog »

I imagine EQ insurance is broken here in Cascadia because not many people have it and governments don't seem too focused on the hazard.

I just got a quote which is double my homeowner's policy annual cost and includes a 10% deductible. Our house is on bedrock with a massive concrete foundation so I think our biggest risks are gas line break and fire (so will install an EQ shutoff) and broken windows. The windows need replacing anyhow and would cost about 10% of the home value (big windows). I conclude the policy is not worth it because I can't envision more than 10% damage even with the much-feared 9.0 quake coming one day. If our place is damaged a lot of others will be far worse and FEMA will be here.
BH Consumer FAQ: | Car? Used Toyota, Lexus or Miata. | House? 20% down and 3x salary. | Vacation house? No. | Umbrella? $1 million. | Goods? Costco.
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