Say WA? Evergreen State ping
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.
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.
ping-a-ding-ding!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1641477/posts
Home Insurance Cancelled...You Too?
y'all just don't try to move to philly. it's already too congested here.
Say WA? Evergreen State ping
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.
I think the word "jolt" would be more appropriate in this case.
All over the world the last couple of decades you've really seen an explosion of studies of paleoseismology - dating and studying past earthquakes by digging trenches through faults, extending well beyond human written records in time.
It's proven quite valuable in identifying risk, especially in areas that have had civilized settlement for a very brief time, like Seattle, Salt Lake City - but it's clear Insurance companies are taking a look at the information and going "Holy Crap, there's a lot more risk here than I thought."
Good. Insurance is the biggest scam in the world anyway.
This never would never have happened if President Palmer was alive!
More seriously, I imagine this is the inevitable result of the government bailing everyone out of disaster who neglects to buy insurance. The insurance companies can bail out of a high-risk area and leave EVERYONE in the government's hands.
Ruh-roh!
Insurance works like this...
You estimate the probability of a claim being filed and the amount of the claim, then you set your premiums such that you can make a profit even if the claim gets filed.
Now, if the probability of the claims and the amount of the claims are such that you must charge a premium that is either unreasonable (won't get customers) or insufficient, you are going to lose money.
You could always bump up the premiums of others who have less risk but then, that is called socialism.
Perhaps what needs to happen is to simply prohibit mortgage companies from requireing insurance.
That or simply allow mortgage companies to make loans without requiring insurance.
what did these people expect? You cant live on the ocean front (or in a earthquake area in this case) without having consequences. Deal with it.
Maybe they know something we don't.
More seriously, I imagine this is the inevitable result of the government bailing everyone out of disaster who neglects to buy insurance. The insurance companies can bail out of a high-risk area and leave EVERYONE in the government's hands.
How's Jack gonna fix this on a slow boat to China????
More seriously, I think you've nailed it.
The insurance business is the only one I know of where the companies fire their customers on a regular basis!
I can see a lender going along with that as long as they can write you a mortgage at 25% or 30% interest.
When we were still paying for our house we had to have flood insurance. Strangely I don't think there was much danger of a flood here above the dam.
One of the happiest days of my life was the day we were paid off and I could tell everybody to stick it. Now we get calls every day offering us a good deal on a second mortgage.
All the scientific studies of the Cascadia megathrust, and also the smaller faults directly under Seattle, are public, as is the USGS seismic hazard map.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.