What You Need to Know About Earthquake Insurance in Porter Ranch

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Today we are happy to be joined by Zachary Schneiderman of Schneiderman Insurance, who is here to talk to us today about some of the common myths and misconceptions of earthquake insurance. As we all know, we live in earthquake country, and in light of all the recent earthquakes we’ve seen over the past few weeks, we thought this would be a good topic to discuss.

There is a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to earthquake insurance, but it’s an important item to have if you’re a homeowner in the area. If you don’t carry earthquake insurance and your house is affected, you are going to be responsible for 100% of the costs, and may even have to take a loan out from FEMA.

Now, if you have a 10-15% deductible that earthquake insurance typically has, that’s all you will have to borrow. When you’re looking at making a loan payment after an earthquake, it’s a lot better to only have to pay 10-15% back over time than 100%. If you can afford it, it makes a lot of sense to have.

One thing that’s important to note is the recent changes that have come to the California Earthquake Authority. This organization started after the 1994 earthquake, but they haven’t made a lot of changes to their coverages and options since then. In addition to the 10% and 15% deductible options they had in the past, they have added 5%, 20%, and even 25% deductibles as well.  Another thing they did was raise their limits. In 1994, $25,000 in loss of use coverage was a lot, but not so much anymore. Their loss of use coverage goes all the way up to $200,000 today.

Another important thing to note is that if you have certain items like a pool house or detached garage, the California Earthquake Authority does not cover that and you’ll need to get coverage from an outside company.

Thank you to Zachary for joining us today. If you have any questions for him, feel free to give him a call at (818)322-4744. If you have any other questions for us, we are always available to chat via phone or email. We look forward to hearing from you!