Or reason No. 428 why people hate insurance companies
I just received an offer from my insurance company that I can only describe as less than earth-shattering. Here’s the e-mail:
Important information regarding earthquake insurance!
Dear Paul B. McNamara,
With the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile fresh on our minds, Fearmonger Insurance Services wants you to know that your homeowner’s policy EXCLUDES earthquake damage (emphasis theirs). Chile and Haiti sit on major fault lines, but a damaging earthquake in New England is not unheard of.
Overlooking the unseemliness of exploiting tragedy for profit, it is true that minor earthquakes happen here regularly, but there hasn’t been a damaging one in my 52 years and experts expect such a major event to happen only once every 500 to 900 years or so.
Nevertheless, Fearmonger Insurance wants to rattle any confidence those numbers may instill.
According to Edward S. Fratto, the Executive Director of Northeast States Emergency Consortium, we tend to get low-frequency, high-impact events. Small earthquakes centered in New England occur on a regular basis, with perhaps six a year that can be felt. On April 10, 2009, a 2.3 magnitude earthquake occurred just off the coast of Eastern Massachusetts. Don’t be fooled – even low frequency earthquakes can cause damage.
While those of you in earthquake-prone areas finish snickering about the magnitude 2.3, let me tell you what I found while spending way too much time searching for news articles about the damage caused by that April 10, 2009 temblor: Nothing, not a thing.
Years ago when I was a columnist for the local newspaper, I wrote a piece pooh-poohing the need for earthquake insurance in this area. To bolster my point, I called an earthquake expert at the Weston Observatory, a geophysical research facility located a few towns over from where I sit. I asked the guy if he carried earthquake insurance on his own Massachusetts home. He hemmed and hawed, understanding immediately where I was going with the question, and then admitted that, no, he did not carry earthquake insurance.
That was good enough for me.
But Fearmonger presses on.
Earthquake coverage can be quite affordable. For more information on what it would cost to add this type of coverage, please call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Our insurance experts can advise you on the best way to protect you, your family and your belongings.
I won’t be calling the experts at Fearmonger, obviously, but were I to do so this would be my question: If damaging earthquakes are so exceedingly rare that earthquake experts don’t see a need for earthquake insurance — and earthquake coverage can be “quite affordable” — why isn’t it covered under my standard homeowner’s policy?
