Monday, February 1, 2010

Scott Adams Blog: Earthquake Insurance 02/01/2010

Scott Adams Blog: Earthquake Insurance 02/01/2010: "Where I live, about an hour from San Francisco, you have to think about getting earthquake insurance. I've always had it. But I looked into it again for our new house because the insurance is absurdly pricey. I learned, to my surprise, that most people in earthquake territory don't buy earthquake insurance. This made me wonder who the bigger fools were."

I'm actually a little surprised that you can get earthquake insurance. I won't be surprised if it is as heavily regulated as flood insurance.
I made it a point to get out of earthquake territory. I grew up in hurricane country and those weren't bad since you usually had plenty of warning.

Earthquakes don't give nice warnings. Even tornados give better warnings then earthquakes. You may or may not get smaller earthquakes before a big one. It may even get quiet before one too. Noticing something that isn't there is often very hard.

Also worst case earthquakes are terrible: buildings collapsing, road and rail damage, multiple utility failures, fire without much hope for first responders coming in a timely fashion and if you are on the coast tsunamis.

Tornados are nicer since they are almost an either/or disaster. Either your home is spread all over the landscape or it isn't.

It's not that you can't prepare for an earthquake, you can and should. You need to reinforce your home and attach it to the foundation, secure heavy furniture and water heaters, spread you preps out, a shed in the backyard is easier to dig out, park your car away from things that can fall on it.