Let’s rip the bandage off. Your regular California homeowners policy doesn’t cover earthquakes. The house can shake, crack or shift right off its foundation, and that policy stays out of it. We’re insurance brokers here at Uncle Sheldon Insurance, and this is one of those gaps we’d much rather talk about before the ground moves than after.
So how do you actually get covered?
Most people buy a separate earthquake policy, and a lot of those come through the California Earthquake Authority, a publicly managed program sold through participating insurers. Some private carriers write their own earthquake coverage too, sometimes with more flexible options. Part of our job is lining those up side by side so you’re not guessing.
You may have seen this already without realizing it. California insurers have to offer earthquake coverage when you first buy a homeowners policy and again every couple of years. If a letter about it has been going straight into the recycling bin, that’s what it was.
The deductible is where people gasp. Earthquake deductibles are a percentage of your dwelling coverage, usually somewhere between 5% and 25%. On a home insured for $800,000, a 15% deductible means you’d cover the first $120,000 yourself. Nobody should skip coverage over that number alone. Just choose the deductible with your eyes open, which is usually where our first conversation with clients starts.
One piece of good news. If a quake starts a fire, your homeowners policy generally still covers the fire damage, because fire is covered even when the earthquake that caused it isn’t. If your area also sees wildfire risk, our page on California wildfire coverage explains how that side of the market works right now.
Whether earthquake coverage makes sense depends on your home’s age, how it’s built, whether it’s been retrofitted, and how much your savings could absorb. If you’re house hunting and weighing places like we did in Boulder vs Santa Barbara, put earthquake coverage in the budget on the California side. And if you’d like someone to run the numbers with you, that’s exactly what our team does.