Wife and I live essentially right along a pretty major fault line, and as with many places, we're overdue for a big one. I've lived here for 11 years and never felt even a mild tremor, but odds are it will happen eventually.

We've been thinking about earthquake insurance and can't decide. It's not cheap, of course (for our house, it's about $1000 extra per year), but we have a pretty old house (ca. 1921) that would likely crumble to dust if we had a good shake. Plus, we're thinking of doing some pretty significant renovations to it next year, so it might help protect the investment.

We plan on living in this house for some time (maybe another 10-20 years), and our mortgage will be paid off well before then. I'm thinking we should probably do it. Just wondering what others here think.

I don't have it, but I'm wondering if you get a discount if during renovations, you can bring it up to code, if your area even has an earthquake building code.

I doubt they would give us a discount, but also bringing our house up to code would be beyond our capacity. It would take some serious renovations to do that to this house. Good thought, though.

My wife just left the insurance field about three months ago, and she says "no thanks" to earthquake insurance. Mostly because there are no guarantees that you will ever get any payoff in the unhappy event of a claim. If the big one ever comes, the insurance wont payoff. IE-collect premiums and declare bankrupt if it ever happens. Private policies get paid last out of a giant fund, i think. I forget exactly what her reasons were, I just remember she said she would never buy it...

Take it for what it's worth...

That's a good thought, thanks.

not true. at least not completely.

the big 3 (state farm, allstate, nationwide) have the funds to pay out any type of loss. and i do mean ANY.

the question to ask yourself, is if an earthquake happens, and your home is damaged or destroyed ala katrina, do you want to rely on the federal govt to take care of you.

bottom line is that buying earthquake ins is just like buying auto ins. all you are buying is piece of mind that IF something happens, it will be taken care of for you.