The widespread havoc in Japan has made it crystal clear that natural disasters can strike at any time and at any place. The tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes all remind us of the awful truth of the unpredictability of such events. This discussion is merely about earthquakes so averting to other calamities will lead the debate askew. Earthquakes are fast becoming one of the most frequently occurring natural disasters, and they do colossal amounts of damage, wherever they strike. Some mentionable earthquakes in recent times are the one in Pakistan in October of 2005 that left most of the country devastated, the earthquake in India in August of 2009, the ones in Haiti and Chile in January and February of 2010 respectively and the February 2011 earthquake of 2011.
Reason As To Why One Should Buy An Earthquake Insurance Policy:
The fact is that nature is highly unpredictable and when it does strike, it afflicts heavy amounts of damage to public and private property. Earthquakes can leave millions homeless and millions others in dire need of help like it has in almost every case. The answer to having some assurity of one’s property’s safety in such times is Earthquake insurance. It has become increasingly important for today’s world where the number of actual earthquakes occurring is rapidly increasing by the day. Again, earthquakes can happen at any place and at any time. With most of the United States uninsured, there is an ever high risk of physical and monetary damage to companies and citizens.
Even after safety precautions taken by the Japanese it is pretty evident that they too couldn’t withstand the great deluge of the tsunami and the shocks of the colossus quake. What American firms and American people need to understand is that they as well can face this disaster. If God forbids, anything of that scale was to happen in the United States, they would have fared a lot a worse than Japan.
United States Insurance Trends In Contrast To New Zealand:
What the United States needs to consider is to update their buildings to modern standards. Americans aren’t earthquake insured either. Upon a closer look at the recent earthquake in New Zealand this year, most Kiwis had Earthquake insurance and total damage totted up to US $12 billion.
The reason behind all this is that most Americans haven’t even considered earthquake coverage with most of America being at the risk of earthquakes. Another reason is that home insurance policies do not cover earthquakes. Moreover, earthquake coverage has high deductibles, and low coverage making most people refrain from even considering it as an option. Another reason why people do not have to quake insurance is that they believe that earthquake coverage is included in their insurance policy even when it’s not.
Cost Of Earthquake Insurance:
The actual cost of quake insurance is from two to twenty percent of a houses’ replacement value. A house costing US$ 400,000 to reconstruct and the policy states a 2% deductible. The policyholder pays the first US $ 8,000 only.
In the unlikely event of an earthquake taking place the insurance covers the entire house and the cost of the goods damaged inside. Automobiles are also covered if the holder has an auto insurance policy. Even payments of earthquake premiums vary from place to place depending on the probability of a shock in the area and the possible destruction that it can cause.
