Are earthquakes covered by home insurance?

What? You mean my home insurance can cover explosions and a meteor falling from the sky into my roof, and it can’t cover earthquakes?!

Yeah basically. (And we’re not kidding about those other coverages.)

Why doesn’t my home insurance cover earthquakes?

Here’s the deal. If you’re worried about earthquakes in the first place, you’re probably living in a disaster-prone area. For insurance carriers, that means that it’s too big and too costly of a risk to include in a standard policy that everyone just has. And besides, most insurance policy exclude “earth movement”.

If you’re not in an earthquake-prone area, then the likelihood of you being in an earthquake is probably low enough that you’re not too worried about the damage it will cause or the claim that you may have to file.

So, home insurance companies usually just leave earthquake coverage out across the board.

So, why buy earthquake insurance anyway?

Well, if you’re in one of those earthquake-prone areas…why…wouldn’t you? You could have coverage to help you rebuild your house after your house literally just moved. A house. That moved. Shaky shaky. You don’t want that?….okay, I guess.

Take note of the deductible.

Make sure you understand how your earthquake insurance deductible works ahead of time so that you’re not frustrated and confused as you’re trying to file a claim. Ask questions if you have any so that you know what’ll happen if you did have an earthquake-related loss.

Bonus Points!:

Even though a typical home insurance policy doesn’t cover earthquakes, it can cover a fire that started because of an earthquake. Interesting, right?

Also, you may want to make sure that you’ve got the right amount of coverage in your earthquake policy so you can truly protect yourself in the event of a loss.

So, that’s the short and skinny of earthquake insurance. If you’ve got more questions, our agents are great at giving you more short and sweet answers. Just call them! (Or just LiveChat with them. We know that phone calls are scary.)