Posted on 05/31/2006 8:09:54 PM PDT by paulat
Allstate dropping earthquake coverage in Washington
06:52 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 By GLENN FARLEY / KING 5 News
SEATTLE - A major Washington insurer will stop offering coverage for earthquakes in the state, a decision that will affect about 50,000 property owners.
Allstate insures nearly 250,000 homeowners in the state and about one in five has quake insurance.
The move by Allstate has state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler concerned that other carrier may follow suit.
"I'm very concerned, because you never know, if Allstate is just the first of several that are going to take this step," he said.
Kreidler said Hurricane Katrina has the insurance industry re-thinking its exposure to mass disasters.
And when they start pulling away from those risks, they start evaluating other risks as well, including tsunami's and earthquakes.
So far, no other insurance companies in Washington appear to be following Allstate.
"We have not found a trend that our insurance companies have stopped writing earthquake insurance," said Darrin Sangar, with the Northwest Insurance Council.
KING
Marshel Lvie's Lakewood, Wash. home will no longer be insured against earthquakes unless he can find another carrier. Allstate Insurance has announced it will no longer write earthquake policies.
Lakewood homeowner Marshel Lvie got the news in a letter recently that his earthquake insurance rider would not be renewed. Lvie has been a customer of Allstate for 30 years.
"I count my blessings, but this did come as a little bit of a shock," Lvie said.
He said a quote from his agent to use a different company just for earthquakes would mean higher deductibles, higher premiums and possibly less coverage.
Customers like Lvie can shop around and don't have to stay with the company Allstate agents are now offering quake coverage through He has until the end of July, to find that important policy.
Allstate says customers buying new policies with another carrier could see the price of earthquake insurance go up, or in some cases even go down depending on where and how their homes were built.
"The recent earthquake which struck Kobe, Japan, resulted in the loss of over 5000 lives and millions of dollars in property. However, large parts of the United States are also subject to large magnitude quakes - quakes which could be far more powerful than the Kobe quake! Although we tend to think of California and Alaska as the places where most of our earthquakes occur, the fact is that the central U.S. has been the site of some very powerful earthquakes.
In the past three centuries, major earthquakes outside of California and Alaska generally occurred in sparsely-settled areas, and damage and fatalities were largely minimal. But some took place in areas that have since been heavily built up. Among them are three earthquakes that occurred in 1811 and 1812 near New Madrid, MO. They are among the Great earthquakes of known history, affecting the topography more than any other earthquake on the North American continent. Judging from their effects, they were of a magnitude of 8.0 or higher on the Richter Scale. They were felt over the entire United States outside of the Pacific coast. Large areas sank into the earth, new lakes were formed, the course of the Mississippi River was changed, and forests were destroyed over an area of 150,000 acres. Many houses at New Madrid were thrown down. "Houses, gardens, and fields were swallowed up" one source notes. But fatalities and damage were low, because the area was sparsely settled then."
http://hsv.com/genlintr/newmadrd/
Don't forget that the deductible on most of these earthquake plans is so high that they are almost meaningless to people who don't have a lot of assets.
The deductible was too high anyway.
Washington is not a high risk; and most houses are wood frame construction, so there is quite a lot of 'give'.
Other than 9+ magnitude earthquakes every now and then, magma flows, volcanoes, floods including the Great Missoula, 100 mph+ windstorms that take out floating bridges, not much risk.
They know that if they go dropping coverage in DC hell will be upon them lol. If you thought they were pissed because exercising a search warrant on a congressman suspected of a felony was bad, just let them lose insurance on that $5,000,000 house they HAVE to live in while congress is in session.
Naw...perhaps they are heeding the recent Pat Robertson prediction about something big hitting the Northwest in the near future....that would be a bummer not to have eathquake damage covered by insurance....real estate is quite high priced in and around the Seattle area.
I have Allstate, but they funnel that insurance through the state in CA.
I really do feel for people that get dropped like that. I would hope that if this goes on too much, other small insurance companies would see a good opportunity and start selling in these places. Would be a risk, but I think it would pay off.
The only real threat is if Mt. Rainier blows. That could be devastating for the people affected. Might not be covered in most policies.
Mt. Rainier (rumble-rumble-rumble)
I checked my policy... I'm covered against ash damage and lava from Rainier isn't an issue. I asked them if I was covered in case of a lahar, and was met with silence.
They had to look up the definition of "lahar" and call me back. Short answer, a lahar is considered to be a flood. So I would need flood insurance (if I wasn't at 550ft.)
Hehe:)I just think they get stats we don't know.
The possible Mt. Rainier lahar channels and past occurances are fairly well known. One extends all the way to Tacoma and Puget sound - should be easy to determine if you have any risk at all.
One thing I notice that people don't understand about Rainier is that it DOESN'T HAVE TO ERUPT AT ALL to cause a lahar that would kill thousands of people. The top of Rainier is full of hydrothermal activity, dissolving the rock and making it the consistency of cheese.
A lot of Rainier's summit is unstable and could simply fall off five minutes from now, without any eruption at all.
My house in Olympia was damaged in the Nisqually earthquake. Our neighborhood was close to the epicenter. A house up the block was one of the handful that was totally destroyed.
That was something. I walked through downtown Olympia an hour or so after the quake. I will never forget watching the cops out with their dogs looking for people who had been squished under the large piles of fallen rubble. By some miracle, no one was.
Fortunately, I had earthquake insurance. The insurer claimed my policy had a deductible of 10% of the value of my house. I copied my policy and sent it to them, showing them that they had left the little space where they were supposed to put that information blank. According to the fine print on the policy, that meant the deductible was really only $500.00. The insurer grumbled, but payed.
My family had to live elsewhere for a couple of weeks while the contractor fixed the house. The insurer paid for us to rent a condo on the beach in Ocean Shores. Worked out great.
I figure our area is probably safe now for 20 or 30 years. . . .
But there's a catch. There's a 15% deductible. But that's on the total cost of the home, not on the cost of the damage.
I noticed that another insurer offered an earthquake policy from the same place. The agent from this other company misstated the true nature of the deductible.
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