Quote:
Originally Posted by Noah930
When I looked into policies about 7 years ago, the deductibles were no where near 10G. I would have snapped that up in a heartbeat. The deductibles I came across were more in the 20+% range. As in, I'd have to cough up a couple hundred thousand dollars in event of a claim.
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This^^. Except your deductible would not be a couple of hundred thousand.
The Northridge quake changed the industry. Prior to the quake, the insurance companies underwrote the policies and, as a result, almost wiped them out. We had 21st. Century Homeowners at the time, without a quake policy, and thy dropped us as they left the home insurance market (later to return.) As a result of the quake, the state formed the CEA, California Earthquake Authority, which underwrites quake insurance and the companies join the Authority to offer the policies to their clients.
The costs of the policies vary, depending on the age, location, and construction of the house so it's difficult to cite costs but, generally, the deductible is 15% of the value of the
structure, not the land--
they use the same value of the structure as you have on your homeowners policy. To get an idea of your deductible costs, you'd need to estimate the square foot cost of rebuilding your house at current rates (including code upgrades) or use the value assigned to your structure on your homeowners, and take 15% of that. For example, if you have a 3000 sq.ft. home "valued" at 1.5 million dollars, the structure value would be insured for about $450K-600K. Your deductible would be 15% of that, or around $67.5K-$90K.
Still, you have to decide if the cost of
your specific premium, plus the deductible, is worth the risk.